Caseflicks

Supreme Court of the United States • 1971

Phillips v. Martin Marietta Corp.

400 U.S. 542 | 91 S. Ct. 496 | 27 L. Ed. 2d 613 | 1971 U.S. LEXIS 140

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Takeaway

In short, this case holds that Title VII forbids an employer from imposing a child-care-related hiring rule on women but not men, and that unsupported assertions about mothers' responsibilities cannot justify summary judgment under the bona fide occupational qualification exception.

Background

Ida Phillips sued Martin Marietta under Title VII after the company declined to accept her application for an assembly-trainee position because she had pre-school-age children. Martin had announced that it would not accept applications from women with such children.

At the same time, Martin employed men who had pre-school-age children. The company also showed that women made up roughly 70 to 75 percent of applicants for the position and 75 to 80 percent of those hired. The District Court granted summary judgment for Martin Marietta, concluding that these figures showed no general bias against women. The Fifth Circuit affirmed. The Supreme Court granted certiorari, vacated the judgment, and remanded for further proceedings.

Issues

Issue #1

Whether Title VII permits an employer to apply one hiring policy to women with pre-school-age children and a different policy to men with pre-school-age children.

Holding

No. Section 703(a) requires persons with like qualifications to receive employment opportunities irrespective of sex, and Martin Marietta's sex-specific parental-status policy was therefore unlawful unless justified under the statutory bona fide occupational qualification exception.

Reasoning

The company did not merely decline to hire parents of young children. It excluded women with pre-school-age children while employing men with children of the same age. That distinction gave different employment opportunities to otherwise similarly situated applicants because of sex.

The lower courts improperly treated Martin Marietta's substantial hiring of women as dispositive. Title VII protects individuals from discrimination because of sex; an employer may violate the statute by applying a discriminatory condition to one subgroup of women even if it hires many women generally.

Issue #2

Whether Martin Marietta was entitled to summary judgment on the theory that the differing family obligations of mothers and fathers could constitute a bona fide occupational qualification under Section 703(e).

Holding

No. The existing record was inadequate to resolve whether the policy could satisfy the narrow statutory bona fide occupational qualification exception, so summary judgment was improper.

Reasoning

Section 703(e) permits reliance on sex only when sex is a bona fide occupational qualification reasonably necessary to the normal operation of the particular business. The Court recognized that family obligations might arguably support a distinction if they were demonstrably more relevant to a woman's job performance than to a man's.

But the summary-judgment record did not establish the facts needed to decide that question. The case therefore required further factual development and renewed consideration of whether the company could prove a legally sufficient occupational qualification.

Concurrences

Justice Marshall

Reasoning

Justice Marshall agreed that the judgment had to be vacated and the facts developed further, but he rejected the Court's suggestion that generalized differences in mothers' and fathers' family responsibilities could potentially establish a bona fide occupational qualification. In his view, that suggestion risked reviving traditional assumptions about women's proper domestic role.

An employer may demand adequate job performance from every employee and may require both mothers and fathers to arrange child care so that parental responsibilities do not interfere with work. What Title VII does not permit is a sex-specific standard based on the premise that women, rather than men, are presumptively responsible for young children.

Congress added sex to Title VII to prevent employment decisions based on stereotyped characterizations of men and women. Justice Marshall relied on the EEOC's narrow construction of the bona fide occupational qualification exception, which generally limits it to situations in which sex itself is necessary for authenticity or genuineness, such as casting an actor or actress. Performance-related criteria, including those involving parenting, should instead be sex-neutral and applied to individuals.