Supreme Court Reverses Harmful Appellate Court Decision in Lewis v. City of Chicago

By Fatima Goss Graves, Vice President for Education and Employment,
and Kavitha Sivashanker, Fellow,
National Women's Law Center

Today, the Supreme Court took an important step in upholding workers’ rights and promoting equal workplace opportunities by reversing a harmful Seventh Circuit decision in the case of Lewis v. City of Chicago. The Court’s opinion was unanimous, and was written by Justice Scalia, who voted against Lilly Ledbetter’s right to sue her employer.

In Lewis, African-American firefighters were denied positions with the City of Chicago Fire Department based on the results of a flawed exam that had an adverse impact on African-American male and female applicants. The City announced in early 1996 how candidates would be selected for hire from the exam’s results, but the plaintiffs were not harmed by this practice until the City made its first selection of candidates months later. Today’s decision will have a wide-ranging impact on employees’ ability to challenge policies that limit opportunities for women and people of color, such as the testing practices at issue in Lewis as well as education requirements, criminal history requirements, residency requirements, height and weight requirements, and credit checks.

Under Title VII, a plaintiff seeking to bring an employment discrimination suit must first file a charge of discrimination with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) within 180 or 300 days (depending on state law) after the unlawful employment practice occurred. In Lewis, the Supreme Court examined the question of whether a Title VII plaintiff must file an EEOC charge within 300 days of when the discriminatory practice was adopted or when the practice was applied by the employer ― a question with far-reaching implications for the employment opportunities for women and minorities. As the Supreme Court recognized, it is clear from Title VII’s provision governing “disparate impact” cases ― those where a facially neutral practice affects people differently because of their sex, race, color, religion, or national origin ― that an unlawful employment practice occurs each time an employer “uses” the practice that has the disparate impact. The Seventh Circuit, however, had announced a contrary rule that encourages employers to rely on invalid practices that entrench longstanding patterns of racial and gender discrimination.

The National Women’s Law Center filed an amicus brief in Lewis, along with the National Partnership for Women & Families and several other groups, supporting the class of firefighters and the reversal of the Seventh Circuit’s ruling that required the firefighters to file an EEOC charge within 300 days of the adoption of the discriminatory practice. Our brief argued ― as the Supreme Court decided ― that an individual may file a timely claim under Title VII’s disparate impact provision based on the employer’s application or use of the discriminatory employment practice. In other words, the time period for filing a claim under Title VII is triggered anew each time an employer decides to hire or promote some individuals and not others based on the discriminatory employment practice. As the Supreme Court acknowledged today, if only the adoption of the unlawful practice by the employer matters, where an employee is not aware of the adoption of the policy or that it will be used to discriminate against him/her, then “no timely charge [will be] brought [and the employer] can continue using that practice indefinitely, with impunity, despite ongoing disparate impact.”

Today’s unanimous ruling promotes equality in the workplace, and helps ensure that discriminatory employment policies are not simply frozen in place by employers to the detriment of women, minorities, and others.