Catherwood LibraryILR School

The U.S. Supreme Court heard arguments yesterday in a class action lawsuit brought under the Age Discrimination in Employment Act by 117 workers laid off in the mid-1990s in what they allege was a discriminatory corporate restructuring. The case hinges on whether the concept of “disparate impact” used in race and sex discrimination cases can be applied to age discrimination cases such as the instant one---in which over seventy percent of the workers eliminated were over the age of 40. Plaintiffs in a “disparate impact” discrimination case, unlike those in a “disparate treatment” discrimination case, need only show that an employer’s actions had an unequal affect on employees of different genders, races or religions, without proving that the employer had a discriminatory intent.