Walmart ruling favors The Corporatocracy.

Once again, SCOTUS has failed the people and in this case, women specifically. From SCOTUSblog's analysis of today's opinion:

For large companies in general, the ruling in Wal-Mart Stores v. Dukes, et al. (10-277) offered a second message: the bigger the company, the more varied and decentralized its job practices, the less likely it will have to face a class-action claim.  Only workers who have a truly common legal claim may sue as a group, the Court majority made clear — and, even that claim will require rigorous proof that every single worker suffered from exactly the same sort of bias.  Sample statistics and anecdotes won’t do, it said.

The Court split 5-4 in shutting down, entirely, a class-action lawsuit against Wal-Mart that could have affected the legal claims of perhaps as many as 1 million women.  The Court’s four most liberal members, including the three women Justices, dissented.  The Court also ruled — unanimously — that the women could not bring a claim for backpay, as a remedy for discrimination, under the legal theory their lawyers had used.  The ruling was based primarily upon how the Court interpreted a federal court rule — Rule 23.  But there were overtones of constitutional protection for companies facing money claims in a class-action case, ensuring that they must be able to mount a full defense in trying to fend off such claims.

The main opinion, controlling both the 5-4 and 9-0 results, was written by Justice Antonin Scalia, the Court’s most dedicated skeptic about the class-action approach to litigation — a method that allows a large group of individuals, whose own claims may not be worth enough to justify a lawsuit, to join forces as “a class” to pursue grievances that all of them share.  Almost certainly the most significant part of the new ruling was the stress it put on the Rule 23 demand that all of those in the class must have a “common” legal claim — in a workplace bias case, each must show, up front, that the bias they claim was targeted at each of them.

Ah yes, Justice Scalia. He got it right about the recent Westboro Baptist ruling..but not this case regarding institutionalized discrimination in the workplace.

The courts four most liberal jurists, three of whom are female, dissented against several of the key parts of the ruling. Again, from SCOTUSblog:

The part of the ruling dealing with the commonality requirement was joined by Chief Justice John G. Roberts, Jr., and Justices Samuel A. Alito, Jr., Anthony M. Kennedy and Clarence Thomas.   Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg dissented on that facet of the ruling, joined by Justices Stephen G. Breyer, Elena Kagan and Sonia Sotomayor.

The dissenters argued that the evidence the women’s lawyers had offered “suggests that gender bias suffused Wal-Mart’s company culture.”  Their evidence also indicated that the differences in pay and promotions between women and men workers could only be explained by bias, not “neutral variables,” the dissenters added, leaving the clear impression that the dissenters agreed with that assessment.

Repeatedly, the dissenting opinion offered positive reactions to the women’s claims of how the Wal-Mart “corporate culture” actually worked to bolster discretion at the store level, with that discretion exercised predominantly by men influenced by a culture of discrimination.

It's pathetic, to me, that the liberal judges actually found common ground, with the rightwing jurists, that provided them with an out and to rule for the 'corporate culture' of discrimination:

Because of the Court’s ruling on the “commonality” question, closing the class-action claim against Wal-Mart, this second part of the decision had little practical impact other than clarifying when a class-action lawsuit could pursue a money remedy.  The dissenters said they would have left the Wal-Mart women with a further opportunity to try a different section of Rule 23 for their backpay claim, but the majority had scuttled that by ending the class-action case altogether. (emphasis mine)

Letting the rightwing protectors/judges of all things 'corporate' win on this case and at every level, is bullshit.

UPDATE: Nancy Pelosi had some..cough..harsh words for SCOTUS today, with regard to this ruling:

 The Supreme Court's decision to block a class action lawsuit on gender discrimination against Wal-Mart sets back the fight for gender equality, House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi said.

“Today’s Supreme Court decision sets back the cause of equality for women and for all Americans in the workplace and in our society. And it will make it more difficult for workers to come together to fight claims of gender discrimination," Pelosi (D-Calif.) said in a statement on Monday.

Damn skippy sista woman. It's bullshit and bravado at our expense.  Read her entire statement on The Hill website here.

We support this regime?

Karzai signed into law a repressive, horror-filled bill that allows men to deny their wives food if the wife does not cater to the husbands sexual whims. I shit you not, from The Guardian via the Afghanistan Conflict Monitor:

Afghanistan has quietly passed a law permitting Shia men to deny their wives food and sustenance if they refuse to obey their husbands' sexual demands, despite international outrage over an earlier version of the legislation which President Hamid Karzai had promised to review.

The new final draft of the legislation also grants guardianship of children exclusively to their fathers and grandfathers, and requires women to get permission from their husbands to work.

"It also effectively allows a rapist to avoid prosecution by paying 'blood money' to a girl who was injured when he raped her," the US charity Human Rights Watch said.

That is some sick extremist bullshit isn't it? According to Human Rights Watch this law contradicts Afghanistan's own constitution.

In April President Obama spoke out against this law, as did Gordon Brown and most of the UN.

Obviously, Karzai has sold his soul to the devil, otherwise known as the religious extremists.

And we have soldiers dying every day for this fuckwit and his administration.

Title IX, is there still more questions than answers?

This week was the anniversary of Title IX(9). The law mandating gender equity at all federally funded institutions regarding sports teams and school activities. 35 years ago it came into being, yet there is still debate about Title IX.

Two reads about the subject: Sports Illustrated has an article by Dr. Donna A. Lopiano. WaPo has an article up as well, but their writeup is by a male.

I thank the powers that be for creating Title IX. Many young women that never would of gotten to college can thank Title IX, my niece included. They are skilled athletes who would of had to take out thousands of dollars in loans in order to receive a college degree. My niece rec'd a degree in criminology thanks to Sam Houston State's Softball Program. Many of her friends in highschool were able to do the same at college's all over the United States.

I notice a distinct difference between the female and male college athletes. The women graduate with a degree more than the men. Or I just know more intelligent female's..I ain't sure which.

But I am still thankful for Title IX.

Tags: Title IX, Title 9, Womens Equality