Abstract

Marital status is not one of the protected categories of Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, the federal antidiscrimination statute that governs discrimination in employment. This Article will argue that to avoid the types of inequities caused by marital status discrimination, it is necessary for Title VII to protect employees against marital status discrimination.

The more common claims of marital status discrimination are claims that an employer's no-spouse rule or antinepotism policy violates the state antidiscrimination statute. [These policies have two significant problems.] First of all, many courts fail to look at the widely disparate consequences of no-spouse rules on women as compared to men, which Title VII does not adequately prevent, despite its protection against discrimination based on sex. Secondly, state courts' various interpretations of their states' marital status discrimination statutes cause widely disparate results in the law, leading to unpredictability and inequities. This Article will attempt to demonstrate that an amendment to Title VII prohibiting marital status discrimination (along with an interpretation in the statute to help guide the courts) will eliminate these inequitable results.

This abstract has been adapted from the author's introduction.

Document Type

Article

Publication Date

Spring 2000

Publication Information

46 Wayne Law Review 1-48 (2000)

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