Protection Against Unlawful Workplace Discrimination

Mary C. Johns, Editor-in-Chief

The U. S. Supreme Court recently upheld a Chicago plaintiff’s claim for retaliation under a longstanding civil rights law, which sets a national precedence.

In a landmark 7 to 2 decision issued on May 27, 2008, the U. S. Supreme Court upheld Hedrick G. Humphries, A Chicago-area African-American man, rights “to sue his former employer for firing him in violation of one of the nation’s oldest civil rights laws, 42 U.S.C Section 1981.”

Humphries was fired after he complained about discrimination against himself and another American-American employee while working for Cracker Barrel Old Country Stores.

He claimed that the “retaliatory firing” violated that law which Congress passed just after the Civil War to give blacks equal rights to make and enforce contracts, and applies to most employment relationships, according to a press release by Robinson Curley & Clayton, P. C. law firm.

Humphries attorneys argued that the principle of “stare decisis” – which counsels courts to follow precedent-and the language of that law compelled recognition of a right of action for retaliation.

An array of scholars, numerous members of Congress and the United States Justice Department, filed friend of the court briefs, in support of the Humphries’ lawyers’ position.

The decision means that Humphries can now take his claim to trial and prove the facts of his retaliatory firing. It also means that employees around the nation will be protected against termination and other adverse employment actions if they complain of unlawful racial discrimination in the workplace.