Laura Beth Nielsen

Individual Justice or Collective Legal Mobilization? Employment Discrimination Litigation in the Post Civil Rights United States

This article analyzes the outcomes of employment discrimination lawsuits filed in federal court from 1988 to 2003. It goes beyond previous research by examining case filings rather than published opinions and by treating case outcome as a sequential variable. Our analysis is informed by four theoretical models: formal legal, rational action/economic, legal mobilization, and critical realist. We employ a discrete-time event-history model with random effects to estimate whether a case will end at a particular stage. We find that employment discrimination litigation consists overwhelmingly of individual cases, a majority of which end in a small settlement. The outcomes of cases are difficult to predict at the outset of litigation. Legal representation and collective legal mobilization have powerful effects on outcome, but collective legal mobilization is rare. These results are most consistent with the critical realist perspective. Our analysis suggests that employment discrimination litigation maintains laws jurisdiction over claims of workplace discrimination while not providing a significant remedy or an authoritative resolution in most cases.

Subtle, Pervasive, Harmful: Racist and Sexist Remarks in Public as Hate Speech

Using field observations and 100 in-depth interviews with participants recruited from public places in Northern California, this article documents the experience of being the target of hate speech in public places. Focusing on racist and sexist hate speech (as participants define the phenomenon), I show that there is a range of experiences with hate speech and that it is often quite subtle, leaving all but intended victims unaware that it occurs. These data also show that such interactions occur with regularity and leave targets harmed in significant ways. There can be little doubt that members of traditionally disadvantaged groups face a strikingly different reality on the street than do members of privileged groups. Although the legal status of hate speech remains ambiguous, its harms are not.

Scaling the Pyramid: A Sociolegal Model of Employment Discrimination Litigation

This chapter develops a sociolegal model of employment discrimination law in the United States. It addresses two competing characterizations of employment discrimination law: that it is an increasingly powerful and costly system of enforceable rights, on one hand, or a weak system that has largely symbolic effects, on the other. After articulating a legal constructionist framework for a systemic analysis of discrimination law, we summarize key developments in formal law, synthesize research on workplace discrimination, and analyze filings and dispositions data on discrimination litigation in federal courts from 1990–2001. When we apply Miller and Sarat’s concept of the pyramid of disputes (1981) to these data we see the system of discrimination litigation differently. While the most visible aspects of the system sustain an expansive view of discrimination law, the vast gulf between the base of potential discrimination claims and the small proportion of cases that receive favorable legal treatment supports the opposite view. A sociolegal model thus raises important avenues for new empirical study and begins to redefine the current debate. Rather than ask why there are so many discrimination claims, perhaps we should ask why there are so few?

The WTO, Animals and PPMs

WTO, Animals & PPMs offers a new analytical framework for GATT Article XX, which inter alia clarifies the legal and analytical problems attached to non-product related PPMs. The text covers the barriers countries can enact to protect animals (as animal welfare- or biodiversity protection) in the course of trade and their consistency with the WTO rules. The analyses are, however, also useful for a broader range of environmental and moral topics.

Uncertain Justice: Litigating Claims of Employment Discrimination in the Contemporary United States

This article examines the broad mass of employment discrimination claims brought in federal court between 1988 and 2003. Unlike much scholarship, which studies a small proportion of cases that generate published opinions, we analyze a large random sample of cases. Examining a representative sample of cases allow us to better assess laws role in processing claims of discrimination and its relationship to theories of rights mobilization, organizations, and disputing. Our qualitative and quantitative data capture the dynamics of the stages of litigation. We examine the social and legal determinants of outcomes at each stage. Analyzing discrimination litigation as a sequence of alternative outcomes reveals aspects of antidiscrimination law in action that have gone unexamined in previous research. This new approach suggests that the system of employment discrimination litigation reflects the operation of social advantage and typically provides either no or modest remedies for plaintiffs. While employment discrimination litigation grew dramatically in the 1990s, it did so primarily as a system of individualized claims. Thus employment civil rights reflect many of the contradictions of the American civil justice system. A small number of cases produce large awards and have far reaching consequences for employment practices. The typical plaintiff receives neither their day in court nor a meaningful remedy. The uncertain character of outcomes drives parties to reach a settlement.

Paying Workers or Paying Lawyers: Employee Termination Practices in the United States and Canada

This article explores one multinational corporation’s employee termination practices in the United States and Canada. There are fairly insignificant differences in employees’ legal protections in the two countries and the company claims a uniform corporate employee termination process cross-nationally. However, there are major structural and procedural differences in the employee termination process. The differences, including the way attorneys are utilized, the use of quasi-legal personnel to comply with regulatory requirements, and the substance of the severance package are explored. In the United States money is directed toward legal professionals –“paying lawyers” while in Canada expenses associated with employee termination go to severance packages –“paying workers.”

'Ahead of the Lawmen': Law and Morality in Disney Animated Films 1960-1998

This article examines the relationship between law and morality in a selection of animated Disney movies released between 1960 and 1998. The authors analyze all of the fully-animated, G-rated movies that grossed

Situating Legal Consciousness: Experiences and Attitudes of Ordinary Citizens about Law and Street Harassment

100 million or more (adjusted for inflation) which shaped the childhood of lawyers practicing today. We find that the predominant representation of the relationship between law and morality is that they are at odds. Law most often is portrayed as having no relationship to morality or, even worse, as an obstacle to justice. These findings have implications for theories of law and morality, justice, and ethics. These findings also raise provocative questions concerning the role of mass media and popular culture on children’s moral development and understanding of the role of law.