FBI Physical Training Standards

Court Holds FBI’s Gender-Based Physical Training Standards Constitutional

On January 11th, the United States 4th Circuit Court held in Bauer v. Lynch (attorney general) that the FBI did not violate Title VII rules against sex discrimination when it applied different physical standards to men and women.

In Bauer, Bauer failed the FBI Academy when he was unable to complete the thirty push ups required of male trainees (completing twenty-nine). He thereafter filed a Title VII action alleging the FBI discriminated against him on the basis of sex, because female trainees are only required The district court granted Bauer’s motion for summary judgment. On appeal, the court vacated and remanded finding to complete fourteen push ups.

For over ten years the FBI has utilized

v. Virginia (1996) 518 U.S. 515 where it held that generalizations about women could not be used to exclude them from the Virginia Military Institute; some differences between the sexes were real, not perceived, and therefore could require accommodations.

In agreeing with a line of cases finding the physiological differences between men and women impact their relative abilities to demonstrate the same levels of physical fitness, the Court held that “an employer does not contravene Title VII when it utilizes physical fitness standards that distinguish between the sexes on the basis of their physiological differences but impose an equal burden of compliance on both men and women, requiring the same level of physical fitness of