Study On The Unite States Employment Discrimination Law

Striving for equality and antidiscrimination might be the difficult and lasting mission of the human society. Antidiscrimination in workplace is one of the most important tasks in the battle for such antidiscrimination. Discrimination, which treats inferior classes differently by one or more dominant social groups, offends the equal principle. Furthermore, employment discrimination encroaches one's equal and labor rights, and makes the inferior classes, within unfavorable political, economic, social and cultural situation, moving steadily to the social margin adversely either. Employment discrimination would perpetuate and generalize the historical occupational segregation. Thus, the pervasive occupational segregation would inevitably expand the unfair gap of the different social classes, and more than that it will bring the conflicts among such classes. Without doubt occupational segregation will make the perspective of social integration and harmonization falling through. Chinese government has established the equal nondiscrimination employment policies for a long time. However, the government has no practicable employment antidiscrimination law for implementation. On the other side, the U.S. employment discrimination law was enacted early and reaches perfect effects. Studies on the U.S. employment discrimination law, especially with respect to empirical study, would offer a significant reference for us to establish antidiscrimination systems.Within this dissertation, the author performs a systematical and comprehensive approach on the U.S. employment discrimination law with the angle of positive law. The full dissertation consists of seven chapters.Chapter one researches mainly on the significance, research status, contents and methods of this study.Chapter two focuses on the history, source of law and several important concepts in the U.S. employment discrimination law. The equal protection principle serves as the constitutional basis of the U.S. employment discrimination law. After the enacting of the Fourteenth Amendment, the equal protect principle experienced a long and sinuate courses. The civil rights movement in the 1960s settled the bases for comprehensive civil rights legislations. Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 supplies a synthesizer of the U.S. employment discrimination federal legislation. Title VII prohibits employer, labor union and employment agency from employment discrimination because of one's race, color, national original, religion or sex. Title VII establishes the principles and rules of the employment discrimination law, and the federal agency and its procedures for enforcement. Other sources of the law include the Age Discrimination in Employment Act of 1967 and the Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990, etc. According to the case law rules clarified by federal courts, employment discrimination includes disparate treatment and disparate impact. For each of such discrimination, their behavior forms, proof burden and defenses would be different.Chapter three addresses the employment discrimination conducts prohibited by the U.S. employment discrimination law. It is an unlawful employment practice for an employer to fail or refuse to fire or to discharge any person, or otherwise to discriminate against any individual with respect to his compensation, terms, conditions, or privileges of employment, because of his/her race, color, national origin, religion, sex, age or disabilities. It is prohibited for an employer to limit, segregate, or classify his employee or applicants for employment in any way which would deprive or tend to deprive any individual of employment opportunities or otherwise adversely affect his status as an employee, because of such individual's race, color, national origin, religion, sex, age or disabilities. The employment discrimination conducts are variable on the basis of said situation. This chapter discusses detailed universal discrimination in different causes on which an employer discriminates any individual. Particularly, this chapter states the relevant legal rules to harassment appeared newly in workplace. An employer shall bear direct liability or vicarious liability for such harassment in workplace, unless s/he has one or more defenses.Chapter four, the author researches the proof of employment discrimination, which would be one of the quintessence of the U.S. employment discrimination law. Disparate treatment needs proving the discriminatory intent of an employer. If the discriminated individual has no direct evidences concerning the employer's intent, s/he could produce the environmental evidences to prove an employer's discriminatory intent, according to the burden shifting framework. An employer could defend his/her counter-claim based on bona fide occupational qualification or seniority systems in front of the plaintiff's disparate treatment charge. On the other hand, disparate impact requires no evidence concerning the discriminatory intent. After the discriminated individual has proved the disparate effect of an employer's employment practice, the burden of proof would be shifted to the employer, who shall demonstrate that the practice is related to the nature of the job and is consistent with the business necessity or defense with objective employment test.Chapter five studies the most controversial questions of the employment discrimination law: affirmative action. It merely needs requiring employers to treat any individual equally, if the sole purpose of the employment discrimination law is antidiscrimination. Affirmative action requests employers providing preferential treatment to minorities or women in specific situation. An employer may adopt voluntary affirmative action to eliminate the adverse impact on minorities or women of the prior discriminatory environment, to redress the underemployment of minorities or women, or to remedy the unfavorable situations faced by them. Federal agencies, federal governmental contractors and federal fund recipients are obligated to develop and implement an affirmative action plan which tackles the numerical goals for employing minorities or women and the timetable to carry out it to resolve the underemployment. Federal courts may, with their discretion, deliver the order for affirmative action remedies.Chapter six involves the resolution of employment discrimination disputes. Different from other civil disputes, a discriminated individual pursuing for remedies must file a complaint to the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) within the period of prescription. Finalized the EEOC administrative procedures she/he can bring a lawsuit at the federal courts. To pursue remedies for the victims of employment discriminations, EEOC itself can file lawsuit at the federal district courts. The remedies awarded by courts include backpay, frontpay, compensatory and punitive damages, affirmative action and/or attorneys'fees, etc. This chapter also expounds the alternative dispute resolutions to employment discrimination: mediation and arbitration.Chapter seven draws the conclusion of this study briefly based on the prior research, and recommends a few primary proposals for China's legislation of employment discrimination.