Human Relations Commission
Pregnancy Discrimination: Unlawful under the Civil Rights Act
Under state and federal laws, pregnancy, childbirth and related medical conditions, must be treated like any other temporary disability. A pregnant woman cannot be fired, refused employment, required to take leave or treated differently as long as she can perform
her job duties adequately. If other employees are given special accommodation when disabled, so must a pregnant employee be
given such accommodation.
An employee cannot be forced to return to work before she is medically able. Likewise, an employer does not have to extend leave
longer than medically necessary, unless such benefits are given to other temporarily disabled employees. In other words, whatever
policy/practice an employer has regarding temporary disabilities must be the same policy/practice applied to pregnant employees.
Legal protections for pregnant women came into being as a result of a 1976 Supreme Court decision (General Electric v. Gilbert) that
ruled that the denial of benefits on the basis of pregnancy-related disability was not discrimination based on sex. Women's organizations, labor and civil rights advocates and some right-to-life groups reacted strongly to the Court's decision and quickly formed a coalition known as the Campaign to End Discrimination against Pregnant Women. They lobbied hard for Congress to pass legislation to
protect the employment rights of women who, by that time, made up more than 45% of the labor force. Two years later Congress
passed the Pregnancy Discrimination Act of 1978 (PDA). The PDA amended the Civil Rights Act of 1964 to recognize that discrimination based on pregnancy is unlawful sex discrimination.
It is important to note that the PDA does not cover part-time employees, nor does it apply to companies that employ fewer than 15
workers, so it is estimated that as many as one-third of working women are not protected under its provisions. This is significant because mothers are now the primary breadwinners or co-breadwinners in nearly two-thirds of American families. In spite of the fact that
the PDA has been in effect for 32 years, the number of pregnancy discrimination claims brought to the United States Equal Employment Opportunity Commission has risen nearly 30 percent in the last five years. The downturn in the economy coupled with an increasing awareness by women of their legal rights and employers' accompanying lack of awareness, or disregard, of the law seems
to be responsible for the increase. South Dakota's Department of Labor website indicates that there is more confusion about pregnancy discrimination than any other type of employment bias.
Failure to comply with the law can be expensive, as a Sioux Falls medical clinic learned. The case involved two women. One was
fired days after she was hired, and the other was refused employment after the interviewer learned that she was pregnant.
In the first instance, the managing partner of the clinic insisted that the newly hired employee be fired, saying that "her baby was
going to be born during our busy season" and " if they had known she was pregnant they would not have hired her." She was terminated by the clinic in spite of the fact that the managing partner, and others responsible for hiring, were aware that pregnancy
discrimination was illegal. In the second instance, the interviewer wrote a note on the job applicant's resume saying that she was
"overqualified for job," "needed insurance" and was "4 months pregnant!" Again, the interviewer was aware throughout the process that pregnancy discrimination was unlawful.
The case was finally settled in 2007 when the clinic agreed to pay $95,000 in punitive damages in addition to the $23,775 it had
paid earlier for lost earnings and interest in order to resolve the pregnancy discrimination lawsuit brought by the EEOC on behalf of
two women discriminated against in 2002. The EEOC attorney presenting the case stated that the case against the Sioux Falls
clinic was "a clear-cut case of blatant pregnancy discrimination," that the evidence showed that the decision-makers at the clinic
knew that their actions were unlawful, and warned that the EEOC would "prosecute these cases vigorously - at trial and on appeal
- including seeking punitive damages against employers who either maliciously or recklessly violate the rights of pregnant women."
So, it is important that employers be aware of the law's provisions and also that employees know their rights. The U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission has a factsheet available online that summarizes Title VII's pregnancy-related provisions. It can
be accessed at: http://www.eeoc.gov/facts/fs-preg.html
Additional Resources:
"Federal Law - Pregnancy Discrimination Act; The Basics;"
http://www.wombtobloom.com/pregnancy-discrimination-act.html
"What is Pregnancy Discrimination?" http://www.workplacefairness.org/pregnancy?agree=yes#1
"Pregnancy Discrimination: Alive and Well at 30;" http://asbbs.org/files/2010/ASBBS2010v1/PDF/F/Findley.pdf
"Pregnancy Discrimination Claims on the Rise,"
http://thedailyrecord.com/2010/03/14/pregnancy-discrimination-claims-on-the-rise/?postcomment=true
1
South Dakota Department of Labor, Division of Human Rights; http://dol.sd.gov/humanrights/pregnancy.aspx
General Electric Co. v. Gilbert, 429 U.S. 125 (1976); http://caselaw.lp.findlaw.com/scripts/getcase.pl? court=us&vol=429&invol=125
3
"The New Breadwinners; and essay from The Shriver Report: A Woman's Nation Changes Everything." http://www.imow.org/economica/stories/
viewStory?storyId=4744
4
U.S. Equal Opportunity Commission; http://www.eeoc.gov/eeoc/statistics/enforcement/pregnancy.cfm
5
EEOC v. Siouxland Oral Maxillofacial Surgery Assoc., L.L.P.; http://www.employeerightspost.com/2009/08/articles/punitive-damages/
2