Uncertain Justice: Litigating Claims of Employment Discrimination in the Contemporary United States

Nielsen, Laura Beth; Nelson, Robert L.; Lancaster, Ryon

doi:10.2139/ssrn.1093313

Cited by 8 publications

(6 citation statements)

References 27 publications

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“…Days before trial, the parties settled (EEOC, 2009). Only 2% of workplace discrimination plaintiffs win at trial (Nielson, Nelson, & Lancaster, 2008). Clermont and Schwab (2009) hypothesized that this low rate might be because judges do not have sufficient experience with discrimination to understand plaintiffs’ suffering and cannot easily take on a harassed person’s perspective.…”

Section: The Law Of Religious Discriminationmentioning

confidence: 99%

Religion at work: Evaluating hostile work environment religious discrimination claims.

Cantone¹

2017

Psychology, Public Policy, and Law

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Studies rarely address religious discrimination in the workplace, though claims have more than doubled in the last 20 years. The present studies investigated whether social psychology can help predict perceptions of hostile work environments (HWEs) faced by workers on the basis of their religion. That is, the present research examined whether and how self-referencing, similarity, and social identity affect how people perceive complainants and harassers in religious HWE cases and if those perceptions affect legal decisions such as whether discrimination occurred. In Study 1, evaluators read case summaries of Jewish or Muslim workers facing workplace religious discrimination. In Study 2, evaluators read case summaries focused on the alleged harasser, who was either Mormon or Evangelical Christian. The present studies found that self-referenced, subjective assessment as to whether religious discrimination occurred predicted objective legal judgments made after reading jury instructions. In addition, the subjective–objective legal judgment relationship was generally stronger when the evaluator and the complainant were perceived as more similar or shared an in-group status. Overall, these studies demonstrated that the experimental paradigm used to explain self-referencing and perceptions of sexual harassment can be applied to religious discrimination claims, and also expanded that paradigm by investigating the roles of perceived similarity and social identity. Each played an important role in the legal decision making process and Evangelical Christian evaluators were especially shown to protect an Evangelical Christian supervisor accused of harassing a secular employee. Implications for handling and reducing the number of religious discrimination incidents in the workplace are discussed.

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Section: The Law Of Religious Discriminationmentioning

confidence: 99%

Religion at work: Evaluating hostile work environment religious discrimination claims.

Cantone¹

2017

Psychology, Public Policy, and Law

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“…The EEOC defines national origin discrimination as “treating someone less favorably because he or she comes from a particular place, because of his or her ethnicity or accent, or because it is believed that he or she has a particular ethnic background.” It can also include “treating someone less favorably at work because of marriage or other association with someone of a particular nationality” (Equal Employment Opportunity Commission 2002a: n.p.). In practice, national origin discrimination complaints often overlap with other kinds of discrimination, such as race (Nielsen, Nelson, & Lancaster 2008a; Parker 2005).…”

Section: Legal Mobilization Civil Society and Immigrant Workersmentioning

confidence: 99%

From Rights to Claims: The Role of Civil Society in Making Rights Real for Vulnerable Workers

Gleeson

2009

Law Soc Rev

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This article examines the contextual factors driving legal mobilization of workers in the United States through an analysis of national origin discrimination charges under Title VII of the 1964 Civil Rights Act (2000–2005). Consistent with previous studies, this analysis confirms that high unemployment levels and weak labor protections promote legal mobilization. The findings also highlight the positive role that civil society may play in promoting claims‐making. I argue that nongovernmental organizations fill the gap in places where organized labor is weak, and may help support claims‐making particularly in places with a larger vulnerable workforce. The article concludes by offering suggestions for a renewed sociolegal research agenda that examines the role of 501c(3) civil society organizations for the legal mobilization of an increasingly non‐unionized and immigrant workforce.

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“…However, knowledge of this would require that harassment outcomes (and by extension, claims) be publicized, which is often not the case. In a comprehensive study that tracked more than 1,600 employment discrimination cases, including sexual harassment cases, it was found that a very small percentage actually makes it to trial (Nelson, Nielsen, & Lancaster, 2007). Organizations are often motivated to handle cases outside of court to avoid bad publicity.…”

Section: Gaps and Solutions To Improve The Measurement Of Sexual Haramentioning

confidence: 99%

Improving the measurement of sexual harassment climate

Goldberg

Ahmad

2019

Ind. Organ. Psychol.

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Meta-analytic research indicates that harassment experiences are more strongly correlated with harassment climate than with any other predictor of harassment (Willness, Steel, & Lee, 2007). Medeiros and Griffith (2019) highlight the significance of climate in their proposed framework for improving sexual harassment and assault training. However, we argue from research and practical experience that the current measure of harassment climate needs to be elaborated and extended to improve its practical utility. In this commentary, we provide a brief overview of the current harassment measure, identify its limitations, and propose solutions to gain a better understanding of the situational factors that predict sexual harassment training effectiveness and, ultimately, sexual harassment experiences. Brief background of current measurement of harassment climate Extant measures of harassment climate have been based on Hulin, Fitzgerald, and Drasgow's (1996) pioneering work in this area. Their measure and subsequent formulations of it are collectively referred to as Organizational Tolerance for Sexual Harassment (OTSH). Scholars who have relied upon the OTSH have reported consistently high scale reliabilities, with alphas ranging from .

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Uncertain Justice: Litigating Claims of Employment Discrimination in the Contemporary United States

Cited by 8 publications

References 27 publications

Religion at work: Evaluating hostile work environment religious discrimination claims.

Religion at work: Evaluating hostile work environment religious discrimination claims.

From Rights to Claims: The Role of Civil Society in Making Rights Real for Vulnerable Workers

Improving the measurement of sexual harassment climate

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