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The Supreme Court issued a poorly reasoned ruling in June that makes it much harder for older workers to prove illegal age discrimination. Fortunately, bills have been introduced in the Senate and House to undo the damage and put age discrimination cases on an equal footing with other employment-discrimination claims.Continue Reading
When employers discriminate, they generally do not admit it, so Congress and the courts have established calibrated rules of proof to give victims a fair chance. Generally, if workers can show that an illegal consideration, like race or national origin, was a factor in their being fired or demoted, the employer then has the burden of showing that it acted for nondiscriminatory reasons.
That should be the rule under the Age Discrimination in Employment Act of 1967, but the Supreme Court, by a 5-to-4 vote, decided that it is not. Older workers, Justice Clarence Thomas declared for the majority, have the full burden of proving that they were fired because of their age. That is an unfairly difficult standard, and it is an unreasonable interpretation of the law.
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