SCOTUS-Palooza

The Supreme Court handed down a number of big rulings today, including Fisher vs. Texas.  In the case of Fisher however it was a non-ruling, the summary judgment of the 5th Circuit sent back down for further ruling.  Kevin Drum:

Well, the Supreme Court has finally handed down a ruling in one of this year's high-profile cases, and.....it punted. In a case challenging affirmative action at the University of Texas, the Supremes ruled that the Fifth Circuit court failed to apply strict scrutiny when it upheld the university's claim that affirmative action was necessary as way of promoting diversity. Key quote: "The reviewing court must ultimately be satisfied that no workable race-neutral alternatives would produce the educational benefits of diversity."

So now it goes back to the Fifth Court, and then most likely back up to the Supreme Court someday. For now, nothing has changed.

Clarence Thomas made it clear though that if the court had ruled, he would have eliminated all affirmative action nationally:

While it does not, for constitutional purposes, matter whether the University’s racial discrimination is benign, I note that racial engineering does in fact have insidious consequences. There can be no doubt that the University’s discrimination injures white and Asian applicants who are denied admission because of their race. But I believe the injury to those admitted under the University’s discriminatory admissions program is even more harmful.

He goes on to basically say that affirmative action now is as legally indefensible as Jim Crow laws, segregation, slavery, and the Confederacy were in America's past.

It was the other decisions that made things worse, particularly for those seeking a course of action to fight workplace discrimination.  Two decisions, Vance v. Ball State University and UT Southwestern Medical Center v. Nassar, made it much harder to bring workplace discrimination (Vance) and retaliation (Nassar) cases. Both were 5-4 rulings written by Justice Kennedy (natch.) Vance addressed this question: who's liable for harassment in a company, supervisors or co-workers?

Under Title VII, an employer’s liability for workplace harassment may depend on the status of the harasser. If the harassing employee is the victim’s co-worker, the employer is liable only if it was negligent in controlling working conditions. In cases in which the harasser is a  “supervisor,” however, different rules apply.

Kennedy's ruling:

An employee is a “supervisor” for purposes of vicarious liability under Title VII only if he or she is empowered by the employer to take tangible employment actions against the victim.

In other words, co-workers aren't company liable for harassment claims.

Nassar had a similar ruling that retaliation claims were held to a strict standard.  Not a good day to be an employee, but for now, affirmative action lives.

For now.  More SCOTUS fun tomorrow in a rare Tuesday session.  Still to go:  rulings on DOMA, California's Prop 8, and the big one, Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act.