Draft:DeGraffenreid v. General Motors

DeGraffenreid v. General Motors
Court	United States District Court, E. D. Missouri, E. D.
Decided	May 4, 1976
Docket nos.	75-487 C (3)
Citation	413 F. Supp. 142, 11 Empl. Prac. Dec. (CCH) 10,922
Case history
Appealed to	United States Court of Appeals, Eighth Circuit.
Court membership
Judge sitting	Harris Kenneth Wangelin
Case opinions
The Court ruled that since black men were employed and white women were employed, there was no discrimination on basis of sex and gender for a special classification of black women.
Keywords
intersectionality, black feminism, black women, intersectional feminism, Kimberle Crenshaw

DeGraffenreid v. General Motors
Court	Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit
Decided	July 15, 1977
Docket nos.	76-1599
Citation	558 F.2d 480, 15 Fair Empl. Prac. Cas. (BNA) 573, 14 Empl. Prac. Dec. (CCH) 7692, 1977 U.S. App. LEXIS 12451
Case history
Appealed to	United States Court of Appeals, Eighth Circuit.
Court membership
Judges sitting	Myron H. Bright, Donald Roe Ross, Warren Keith Urbom
Case opinions
The Court ruled that since black men were employed and white women were employed, there was no discrimination on basis of sex and gender for a special classification of black women.
Keywords
intersectionality, black feminism, black women, intersectional feminism, Kimberle Crenshaw

DeGraffenreid v. General Motors, 413 F. Supp. 142 (E.D. Mo. 1976), was a legal case in which a United States district court held that black women could not sue for discrimination as a group when they were unable to demonstrate that the defendant discriminated against black people generally, or against women generally, and that the statutory protections against discrimination based on race and sex could not be combined to create a new protection for persons belonging to a group combining both characteristics.

The initial issue in this lawsuit is whether or not the plaintiffs are seeking relief from racial discrimination, or sex-based discrimination. The plaintiffs allege that they are suing on behalf of black women, and that therefore this lawsuit attempts to combine two causes of action into a new special sub-category, namely, a combination of racial and sex-based discrimination. The Court notes that plaintiffs have failed to cite any decisions which have stated that black women are a special class to be protected from discrimination. The Court's own research has failed to disclose such a decision. The plaintiffs are clearly entitled to a remedy if they have been discriminated against. However, they should not be allowed to combine statutory remedies to create a new "super-remedy" which would give them relief beyond what the drafters of the relevant statutes intended. Thus, this lawsuit must be examined to see if it states a cause of action for race discrimination, sex discrimination, or alternatively either, but not a combination of both.

History

Before 1970, General Motors employed only one black woman (as a janitor) in the General Motors Assembly Division in St. Louis. Until May 1, 1970, General Motors excluded all women from assembly line work at its St. Louis plant. Their justification was that state laws and regulations prohibited the employment of females for more than nine hours per day and sending women home early after a nine-hour shift could disrupt production. At the time General Motors did employ some women in the cushion room, where automobile seats and upholstery are produced. However, no black females served as employees in the cushion room. GM began disregarding these state protective laws after May 1, 1970.

During a business recession, General Motors laid off Ms. DeGraffenreid and a number of other employees on January 15, 1974. General Motors used a "last hired-first fired" layoff scheme to decide who was laid off as mandated by GM's collective bargaining agreement with the Union. Five black women who were laid off brought a lawsuit forward alleging race and sex discrimination and that the "last hired-first fired" perpetuates the effect of GM's past race and sex discrimination. All five women (GeGraffenreid, Hines, Chapman, Hollis and Bell) alleged that "but for" GM's discriminatory practices they would have applied for employment between 1965 and 1967.

Decision

The claims were broken into two separate portions: race discrimination and sex discrimination. The sex discrimination claim was dismissed since the women had been hired prior to the enactment of Title VII. The race discrimination claim was consolidated with another suit brought by Black men alleging GM engaged in race discrimination.

The District Court dismissed all claims. The appeals court found that the claim surrounding the "last hired-first fired" layoff scheme was dismissed correctly, but the race discrimination claim should be re-evaluated.

The appeals court reasoning related to "last hired-first hired" is as follows:

However, after the submission of this case, the Supreme Court issued two opinions which make clear that we must sustain the district court's judgment on the appellants' Title VII claims, because those claims, dealing with discrimination in hiring and its effect on seniority and layoff, are either barred by limitations or fail to state a violation of Title VII. See International Brotherhood of Teamsters v. United States.

The Teamsters case emphasizes that § 703(h) of Title VII validates facially neutral seniority systems, even if they perpetuate the impact of race discrimination which occurred before the effective date of Title VII. The Court concluded: In sum, the unmistakable purpose of § 703(h) was to make clear that the routine application of a bona fide seniority system would not be unlawful under Title VII. As the legislative history shows, this was the intended result even where the employer's pre-Act discrimination resulted in whites having greater existing seniority rights than Negroes.

Accordingly, we hold that an otherwise neutral, legitimate seniority system does not become unlawful under Title VII simply because it may perpetuate pre-Act discrimination. Congress did not intend to make it illegal for employees with vested seniority rights to continue to exercise those rights, even at the expense of pre-Act discriminatees.

Impact

The case is notably cited by Crenshaw as an example of the importance of considering intersectionality in discrimination claims.

Other similar cases were being evaluated around the same time. Another 1976 Title VII case contradicted the ruling in DeGraffenreid. In Payne v. Travernol, two Black women attempted to bring a class action suit against their employer on behalf of all Black employees. The defendant requested that the plaintiffs not be allowed to represent Black men, and the court granted this request requiring the plaintiffs to advocate solely for Black women. Ultimately, "in 1980, the court in Jefferies v. Harris County Community Action Association (HCCAA) recognized “combined claims of race and sex discrimination.” Dafro Jefferies, a Black woman, alleged that she experienced sex, race, and “interactive discrimination” when applying for a promotion. The court applied a ‘sex-plus’ analysis established by the 1971 Supreme Court case Phillips v. Martin Marietta Corp., which established that employers could not discriminate based on “sex plus a ‘neutral factor.’”", with the neutral factor being race in this case.

The inconsistency of Title VII case continued over time with different courts reach different verdicts. One suggested reform is to add the phrase “or any combination thereof” to the text of Title VII, to explicitly allow intersectional discrimination claims.