Valarie Hogan, Fellow

Valarie Hogan is the Margaret Fund Fellow at the National Women's Law Center, where she focuses on issues related to education and employment. During law school, Valarie worked on various issues related to education, including special education and school discipline, as an intern at the EdLaw Project in Boston, the Education Law Center in Philadelphia, the U.S. Department of Justice Educational Opportunities Section in Washington, D.C., and Justice for Children and Youth in Toronto. Most recently, Valarie was an associate at Wilson Sonsini Goodrich & Rosati, P.C. in Washington, D.C. Valarie is a graduate of the University of Georgia and Harvard Law School.

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My Take

A Tale of Two Companies: EEOC Files Complaints against BMW and Dollar General Alleging Improper Use of Criminal Background Check

Posted by Valarie Hogan, Fellow | Posted on: June 13, 2013 at 04:28 pm
2010 Chicago Demographics (Source: radicalcartography.net)

2010 Chicago Demographics
Source: radicalcartography.net

‘Tis the season of the summer blockbuster, but while moviegoers are treated to the decadence of the 1920s, deep space exploration, and 6x the car chases, the familiar tale of racial discrimination in employment plays on a loop in the background. The City of Chicago and the state of South Carolina are not new characters in this story, but *Spoiler Alert* there is a new plot twist: a year after the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) released guidance for employers on the proper use of criminal background checks, two employers – Dollar General in Chicago and BMW in South Carolina – are allegedly using criminal background checks to weed out potential and current African-American employees.

The guidance released by the EEOC last April draws attention to the general increase in the number of people involved in the American criminal justice system and the disproportionate impact that it has had on minorities:

In the last twenty years, there has been a significant increase in the number of Americans who have had contact with the criminal justice system. . .By the end of 2007, 3.2% of all adults in the United States (1 in every 31) were under some form of correctional control involving probation, parole, prison, or jail.

Arrest and incarceration rates are particularly high for African American and Hispanic men. African Americans and Hispanics are arrested at a rate that is 2 to 3 times their proportion of the general population. Assuming that current incarceration rates remain unchanged, about . . .1 in 3 African American men [are expected to serve time in prison during their lifetime].

1 in 3 African American men will spend time in prison?! Is this some sort of Wes Craven-created nightmare sequence?

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Tags: EEOC, Employment, Racial Discrimination | 1 comment

BREAKING: Amendment Adding the High School Data Transparency Act to ESEA Reauthorization Passed!

Posted by Valarie Hogan, Fellow | Posted on: June 12, 2013 at 12:41 pm

Yesterday, the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions (HELP) Committee debated Senator Harkins’ reauthorization of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA), which included an amendment to add the High School Data Transparency Act to the ESEA. The amendment would require high schools to publicly report data on how many girls and boys are playing sports and how much money schools are spending on their teams.

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Tags: Education and Schools, Education Legislation, Senate HELP Committee, School Reform & Dropout Prevention, Education & Title IX | Add new comment

NWLC Releases a New Report: 50 Years and Counting: The Unfinished Business of Achieving Fair Pay

Posted by Valarie Hogan, Fellow | Posted on: June 10, 2013 at 05:04 pm

This might be difficult, but try, for a minute, to imagine Congress as a group of artisans – glass blowers, perhaps – who must use their breath to shape the world we live in. Actually, that shouldn’t be too difficult. They may not be artistically inclined (or maybe they are) but obviously, Congress is in the business of shaping our lives through debate (aka their breath) and legislative action.

Today marks the 50th Anniversary of the Equal Pay Act, yet Congress has apparently forgotten the importance of using its power for positive change.

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Tags: Data, Employment, Equal Pay, Equal Pay Act, Wage Gap, Equal Pay and the Wage Gap, Employment | Add new comment

Continuing to Level the Playing Field: NWLC Files Amicus Brief in Ollier v. Sweetwater

Posted by Valarie Hogan, Fellow | Posted on: May 23, 2013 at 02:00 pm

A League of Their Own
Source: IMDb

There may be no crying in baseball, but the lack of athletic opportunities available to girls in secondary schools across the country is definitely something you should be upset about. Just yesterday, the National Women's Law Center filed an amicus brief with the Ninth Circuit in Ollier v. Sweetwater, a case brought by high school girls challenging their school's failure to provide them with equal athletic opportunities and the retaliation they faced after lodging a complaint. The brief supports the district court's ruling that the school failed to meet any part of Title IX's three-part participation test and that it retaliated against the class of girls when it fired their coach among other actions. The school district appealed the decision to the Ninth Circuit. 

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Tags: Athletics, Title IX, Athletics, Education & Title IX | Add new comment

Unsecure Employment: House Committee Votes to Keep Workers in the Dark about Pay Disparities

Posted by Valarie Hogan, Fellow | Posted on: May 23, 2013 at 10:10 am

HHSThere are many things that the Department of Homeland Security ("DHS") does to protect Americans: DHS' mission includes everything from preventing terrorism and enhancing security to managing our borders and ensuring disaster resilience. However, DHS does NOT currently protect the Americans employed by its contractors and subcontractors from retaliation for discussing wages with coworkers. 

Yesterday, Representative Rosa DeLauro introduced an amendment to the Department of Homeland Security Appropriations Act that would bar contractors and subcontractors doing business with DHS from retaliating against employees who discuss their wages. Seems reasonable, right? Punitive pay secrecy policies allow employers to maintain discriminatory practices and the threat of retaliation makes employees feel powerless. Who would object to non-discrimination and anti-retaliation provisions, you may ask? 

Twenty-six members of the House Committee on Appropriations. 

Rather than supporting the rights of employees to seek out pay disparities and combat wage discrimination, the committee passed a substitute amendment that substituted all of the substance of the DeLauro amendment with hot air. 

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Tags: Equal Pay, House of Representatives, Wage Gap, Equal Pay and the Wage Gap, Employment | Add new comment