Baer and Goldstein, Women and Education, pp. 498-500 

This cartoon is copied for an unreliable source (Facebook), but there is plenty of scholarly research that supports this general point. Did you get the pun (General point). I crack myself up.

Syllabus

Respondent, a female employee of an Arizona state agency, instituted a class action in Federal District Court, alleging that the State’s deferred compensation plan for its employees discriminated on the basis of sex in violation of Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. Under the plan, employees have the option of receiving retirement benefits from one of several companies selected by the State, all of which pay lower monthly retirement benefits to a woman than to a man who has made the same contributions. The District Court granted summary judgment for the plaintiff class and ordered that retired female employees be paid benefits equal to those paid to similarly situated men. The Court of Appeals affirmed.

Held: The State’s retirement plan discriminates on the basis of sex in violation of Title VII, and all retirement benefits derived from contributions made after this decision must be calculated without regard to the beneficiary’s sex. But benefits derived from contributions made prior to this decision may be calculated as provided by the existing terms of the Arizona plan.

671 F.2d 330, affirmed in part, reversed in part, and remanded.

Per Curiam…

Syllabus

This suit was filed as a class action on behalf of present or former female employees of petitioner Los Angeles Department of Water and Power, alleging that the Department’s requirement that female employees make larger contributions to its pension fund than male employees violated § 703(a)(1) of Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which, inter alia, makes it unlawful for an employer to discriminate against any individual because of such individual’s sex. The Department’s pension plan was based on mortality tables and its own experience showing that female employees had greater longevity than male employees, and that the cost of a pension for the average female retiree was greater than for the average male retiree because more monthly payments had to be made to the female. The District Court held that the contribution differential violated § 703(a)(1), and ordered a refund of all excess contributions antedating an amendment to the Department’s pension plan, made while this suit was pending, that eliminated sexual distinctions in the plan’s contributions and benefits. The Court of Appeals affirmed.

Held:

1. The challenged differential in the Department’s former pension plan violated § 703(a)(1). Pp. 707-718.

(a) The differential was discriminatory in its “treatment of a person in a manner which, but for that person’s sex, would be different.” The statute, which focuses on fairness to individuals, rather than fairness to classes, precludes treating individuals as simply components of a group such as the sexual class here. Even though it is true that women as a class outlive men, that generalization cannot justify disqualifying an individual to whom it does not apply. There is no reason, moreover, to believe that Congress intended a special definition of discrimination in the context of employee group insurance, since in that context, it is common and not considered unfair to treat different classes of risks as though they were the same. Pp. 707-711.

(b) Though the Department contends that the different contributions exacted from men and women were based on the factor of longevity, rather than sex, and thus constituted a statutory exemption authorized for a “differential based on any other factor other than sex,” there is no evidence that any factor other than the employee’s sex accounted for the differential here. Pp. 711-713.

(c) This case is readily distinguishable from General Electric Co. v. Gilbert, 429 U.S. 125, for here the pension plan discriminates on the basis of sex, whereas the plan in Gilbert discriminated on the basis of a special physical disability. Pp. 714-717.

2. It was inappropriate for the District Court to allow a retroactive monetary recovery in this case. Pp. 718-723.

(a) Though a presumption favors retroactive relief where a Title VII violation has been committed, Albemarle Paper Co. v. Moody, 422 U.S. 405, the appropriateness of such relief in an individual case must be assessed. Here the District Court gave insufficient attention to the equitable nature of Title VII remedies. This was the first litigation challenging pension fund contribution differences based on valid actuarial tables, which the fund administrators may well have assumed justified the differential, and the resulting prohibition against sex-differentiated employee contributions constituted a marked departure from past practice. Pp. 719-721.

(b) In view of the grave consequences that drastic changes in legal rules can have on pension funds, such rules should not be given retroactive effect unless plainly commanded by legislative action. Pp. 721-723.

553 F.2d 581, vacated and remanded.

STEVENS, J., delivered the opinion of the Court, in which STEWART, WHITE, and POWELL, JJ., joined, in all but Part IV of which MARSHALL, J., joined, and in Part IV of which BURGER, C.J., and BLACKMUN and REHNQUIST, JJ., joined. BLACKMUN, J., filed an opinion concurring in part and concurring in the judgment, post, p. 723. BURGER, C.J., filed an opinion concurring in part and dissenting in part, in which REHNQUIST, J., joined, post, p. 725. MARSHALL, J., filed an opinion concurring in part and dissenting in part., post, p. 728. BRENNAN, J., took no part in the consideration or decision of the case.

After watching the 2014 film Selma (directed by Ava DuVernay) and the film Iron Jawed Angels, (directed by Katja von Garnier), post a detailed comment (short essay) below comparing aspects of the two films.  Be sure to focus on aspects of women, gender, and privacy as much as you can. Earn 0-3 points added to your midterm exam.