The Role of Workplace and Legal Context in Employment Discrimination Claims

工作场所和法律背景在就业歧视索赔中的作用

• 批准号: 1823815
• 负责人: Amanda Baumle
• 金额: $ 29.45万
• 依托单位: University of Houston
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Standard Grant
• 财政年份: 2018
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2018-08-15 至 2023-07-31
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=1823815&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: Role; Workplace; Legal; Context; Employment

Civil rights laws prohibit employers from discriminating against employees based on protected social categories, such as race, sex, and disability, as well as newer protected categories that emerge over time. The effectiveness of policies adding a new protected category will depend on the actions of employees, employers, and enforcement agencies. Employees gain the right to file discrimination claims when they believe they have experienced discrimination, but not all individuals are equally likely to view their workplace grievances as discrimination or to file a formal charge. Individuals must choose to invoke the law, and those choices will both reflect and shape cultural understandings of the law. From the enforcement agency perspective, handling of cases will also reflect understandings of the law, and legal rulings will develop the body of law and influence employer actions. The interactions of employees and enforcement agencies in the enforcement process may result in different understandings of the law being accepted, modified, or rejected as a new body of law develops, which will in turn influence the social impact of law. To achieve the equity goals of civil rights laws, it is important to understand these interactions, including how the workplace context and public policies influence which claims are seen as having merit. This knowledge could lead to more effective enforcement of civil rights law by providing a guide for compliance evaluations, a factual basis for refinements of agency practices and legal guidance, and a tool to educate employers on how to avoid discriminatory practices. The project draws upon confidential data on more than 9,000 charges of employment discrimination filed by employees with local, state, or federal agencies, using both qualitative and quantitative methods.This project analyzes the development of a new protected category in federal civil rights law related to a recent expansion in the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission's (EEOC) interpretation of sex discrimination to broaden claims related to gender-stereotyping and other sex-based actions. The empirical analysis involves a two-pronged project that is focused on employees and on the handling of charges at the EEOC. First, the researchers will engage in a qualitative analysis of the narratives filed by parties charging employment discrimination, to explore variation across individual characteristics, workplace characteristics, and legal context in the issues alleged by employees. A qualitative analysis of the discrimination charge narratives will also help to identify why the EEOC might initially classify a charge as more or less meritorious as it processes the charge. Second, the researchers will statistically analyze how the EEOC processes discrimination charges and whether workplace characteristics, state-level laws, and the sociopolitical environment affect whether a charge is found to have merit. A quantitative analysis will allow the use of all charges to identify the effect of workplace and policy context on the EEOC's contribution to this new body of law. The project findings could be used to inform the training of attorneys and human resources professionals to better recognize viable claims of discrimination and to adopt efforts to prevent discrimination.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.

民权法禁止雇主基于种族、性别和残疾等受保护的社会类别以及随着时间的推移出现的新的受保护类别歧视雇员。添加新保护类别的政策的有效性将取决于员工、雇主和执法机构的行动。当员工认为自己受到歧视时，他们有权提出歧视索赔，但并非所有人都同样有可能将其工作场所的不满视为歧视或提出正式指控。个人必须选择援引法律，而这些选择将反映和塑造对法律的文化理解。从执法机构的角度来看，案件的处理也将反映对法律的理解，而法律的裁决将发展法律体系并影响雇主的行动。执法人员与执法机构在执法过程中的互动可能会导致对法律的不同理解，随着新的法律体系的发展而被接受、修改或拒绝，这反过来又会影响法律的社会影响。为了实现民权法的公平目标，重要的是要了解这些相互作用，包括工作场所环境和公共政策如何影响哪些主张被视为有价值。这方面的知识可以通过提供合规评估指南、改进机构做法的事实基础和法律的指导以及教育雇主如何避免歧视性做法的工具，从而更有效地执行民权法。该项目利用了雇员向地方、州或联邦机构提出的9,000多项就业歧视指控的机密数据，本项目分析了联邦民权法中一个新的受保护类别的发展，该类别与平等就业机会委员会（EEOC）最近的扩大有关。对性别歧视的解释，以扩大与性别陈规定型观念和其他基于性别的行动有关的申诉。实证分析涉及一个双管齐下的项目，重点是雇员和在平等就业机会委员会的收费处理。首先，研究人员将对指控就业歧视的当事人提交的陈述进行定性分析，以探索员工指控的问题中个人特征，工作场所特征和法律的背景的变化。对歧视指控叙述的定性分析也将有助于确定平等就业机会委员会在处理指控时最初将指控归类为或多或少有价值的原因。其次，研究人员将统计分析平等就业机会委员会如何处理歧视指控，以及工作场所的特点、州一级的法律和社会政治环境是否影响指控是否有价值。定量分析将允许使用所有的费用，以确定工作场所和政策背景对平等就业机会委员会对这一新的法律体系的贡献的影响。该项目的调查结果可用于为律师和人力资源专业人员的培训提供信息，以更好地认识可行的歧视申诉，并采取措施防止歧视。该奖项反映了NSF的法定使命，并被认为值得通过使用基金会的知识价值和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估来支持。