Fatima Goss Graves, Vice President for Education and Employment

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.