U.S. Supreme Court Scrutinizes Racial Bias Ruling
After several years of employees being required to meet a very high standard to have their cases heard by a jury, that may be changing in the long term. The U.S. Supreme Court recently cautioned federal judges to be careful in the rules of evidence and legal standards for employment discrimination. The Court’s opinion offers employers guidance on the amount of evidence needed to prove racial bias and pretextual reasons for decisions.
The case, Ash v. Tyson Foods, Inc., involved two African-American employees passed over for promotion in favor of two Caucasian employees. Part of their proof of racial bias was evidence that the manager who made the promotion decision had referred to them as “boy.” The Eleventh U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals rejected their argument, saying that use of the word “boy” by itself, with no racial adjectives modifying it, wasn’t evidence of discriminatory intent.
