Supreme Court Leans Toward Police Officer in Job Bias Case

https://www.nytimes.com/2023/12/06/us/supreme-court-gender-discrimination-police-officer.html

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The Supreme Court seemed inclined on Wednesday to allow a female police officer in St. Louis to sue for employment discrimination over a forced lateral transfer to another position in the police department.

A ruling for the officer would open the courthouse doors to more employment discrimination suits, but it was not clear how many.

The justices spent only a few minutes discussing the details of the officer’s case and focused instead on what plaintiffs subject to involuntary transfers must prove when they accuse employers of violating Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which forbids discrimination against workers in the “terms, conditions or privileges of employment” based on, among other things, sex.

Brian Wolfman, a lawyer for the officer, said it was enough to prove that the decision to transfer her had been made for a discriminatory reason, whether or not she had suffered tangible harm as a consequence. “The injury is the discrimination itself,” he said.

Robert M. Loeb, a lawyer for the city, said that was not enough. There must be, he said, “significant, material, objective harm.”

By the conclusion of the argument in the case, Muldrow v. City of St. Louis, No. 22-193, a majority of the justices appeared ready to embrace some version of the officer’s position. “When you treat someone worse than another person because of race or sex, that’s kind of the end of it,” Justice Neil M. Gorsuch said. “And there isn’t a further inquiry into how badly you treated somebody worse.”