Supreme Court Rules for Employer in Pregnancy Discrimination Suit
President Obama may be getting more pressure to add a woman to the Supreme Court following a ruling by the justices today.
In a case CNN called a “setback for female workers,” the Court ruled that employers may give less credit for leave that occurred prior to the passage of the Pregnancy Discrimination Act (PDA) than for other types of leave when calculating pension benefits.
The PDA, passed in 1978, requires employers to treat pregnancy leave the same as any temporary disability. At issue in the case was what to do about pre-1978 pregnancy leave. Four AT&T employees claimed they were treated unfairly when the company failed to apply the PDA retroactively to leave time that arose prior to 1978.
In the 7-2 vote, the majority refused to apply the PDA retroactively to pre-1978 leave, finding that AT&T complied with the law in effect at that time.
Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg — the only woman on the court — disagreed. In her dissent, she stated that AT&T committed a “current violation” of Title VII “when, post-PDA, it did not totally discontinue reliance upon a pension calculation premised on the notion that pregnancy-based classifications display no gender bias.”
In a recent interview, Ginsburg called for the appointment of more women to the Court and described her view that the gender imbalance has had a negative impact on deliberations among the justices.
Click here for CNN”s take, which correctly noted that the ruling applies to a “relatively small class of women.” Click here to read the Court’s full opinion.