Sex Discrimination in Employment
Question One
What did you learn from this text reading that shed new light on the original decision?
There various things to be learnt from the text that shed light on the original decision. In this case and in matters of employment discrimination based on sex the plaintiff needs to give evidence and facts that their fate under the employment was reached as a result of discrimination.
The defence, on the other hand, needs to reasonable proof that the decision made on the employment of an individual was purely based on other factors and not discrimination. In this case, Price Waterhouse argued that the decision to propose or not to propose Hopkins was based on other reasons such as failure to get along with staff, being aggressive and not based on discrimination. Therefore, the Price Waterhouse was required to prove that they would have made a similar employment decision without considering the sex of the plaintiff.
Additionally, the text shows that the employer employment objective decision is influenced by the issues of discrimination. The decisions of the employer are kept in check and thus the employment decision made by the employer need not have any subjective decisions. All the employees and candidates of a job position need to be treated equally and evaluated from a similar platform
Question Two
2. Price Waterhouse v. Hopkins is known as a mixed-motive case, which allows an employer to prove that non-discriminatory factors would lead to the same result. Does the court’s treatment of these mixed-motive cases strike the right balance? Why or why not?
In the proving of the non-discriminatory factors the court treatment of the mixed-motive strikes the right balance. Price Waterhouse argued that their decision not to propose to Hopkins was based on other factors not discrimination on sex. The right balance, in this case, was exercised by the court placing the burden of the preponderance of the evidence on the Price Waterhouse. Therefore, in the case, the defence proves they did not consider Hopkins based on other factors then they would escape from the liability.
Finally, the court tried to strike the balance by adopting the evidentiary standards to argue the case. The court established that the board was discriminatory on women regarding the partnership position and that is a possible cause of denying Hopkins the chance despite the defence presenting other reasons.
