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| 'Moms Less Involved' Is Biased |
Laurie Chadwick says her employer Wellpoint, an insurance company in Maine, refused to promote her due to sex-based stereotypes. Despite a successful seven-year career and excellent performance ratings, her supervisor gave the job to a less experienced female co-worker. According to Chadwick, Wellpoint didn't promote her (Chadwick) because she was the mother of four young children.
When explaining why Chadwick didn't get the promotion, her supervisor said, "It was nothing you did or didn't do. It was just that ... you have the kids and you just have a lot on your plate right now [and] if [the interviewers] were in your position, they would feel overwhelmed."
The Court ruled that Chadwick had a legitimate claim for bias. "Chadwick alleges that [Wellpoint] discriminated against ... women with children, particularly young children," the Court wrote. "The type of discrimination Chadwick alleges involves stereotyping based on sex."
"We are beyond the day when an employer could evaluate employees by assuming or insisting that they matched the stereotype associated with their group," the Court observed. "The assumption that a woman will perform her job less well due to her presumed family obligations is a form of sex stereotyping."
"Particularly telling is [the supervisor's] comment that, 'It was nothing you did or didn't do.' After all, the essence of employment discrimination is penalizing a worker not for something she did but for something she simply is," the Court noted. "A reasonable jury could infer ... Chadwick wasn't denied the promotion because of her work performance ... but because [her supervisor] assumed that as a woman with four young children, Chadwick would not give her all to her job."
"It is undoubtedly true that if the work performance of a woman (or a man, for that matter) actually suffers due to childcare responsibilities (or due to any other personal obligation or interest), an employer is free to respond accordingly, at least without incurring liability under Title VII," the Court wrote. "However, an employer is not free to assume that a woman, because she is a woman, will necessarily be a poor worker because of family responsibilities." [Chadwick v. Wellpoint (1st Cir. 2009) no. 08-1685]
For information on this topic, request: |
5560 Sex Discrimination: Overview
9510 Equal Employment Opportunity Policy
9564 Promotion Checklist
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