Summary Of The Dukes V. Wal-Mart Stores Inc.

This paper will examine the Dukes v. Wal-Mart Stores Inc. case and the appeals thereafter. Plaintiff, Betty Dukes, claimed sexual discrimination against Wal-Mart Stores Inc., the largest company in the world and is the largest private employer in the United States. Dukes claimed she was denied the training needed in order to advance into a higher position as well as wage discrimination based on her sex. The plaintiff desired to also represent approximately 1.6 million past and present female employees of Wal-Mart in a class action suit. In Federal District Court, the case was ruled in favor of the plaintiff and ruled class certification. However, upon appeal by Wal-Mart Stores Inc., the Supreme Court ruled that the case should not be viewed

in Pittsburgh, California, a town near San Francisco. Dukes was hired as a part-time cashier by the Wal-Mart store in Pittsburgh in 1994. After great performance reviews, Betty Dukes was soon promoted to a full-time cashier, which included a large merit pay raise. After working for three years at the store, she was promoted to the position of Customer Service Manager. Soon after her promotion, she felt that she had been the victim of sexual discrimination, and she addressed her concerns with the district manager, Chuck Salby. Management retaliated in response to her complaint, including reducing her wages and hours. Additionally she was demoted back to the position of cashier and “encouraged not to seek advancement to management positions for which she was eligible, and she was not notified when managerial positions became available.” The store would not provide any formal job postings for these positions and a male staff member would fill them before any female staff members were given the opportunity to apply. She had been employed by Wal-Mart for seven years and was fifty-four years of age when she filed a suit against her employer. Dukes filed a suit against Wal-Mart Stores Inc. alleging she was a “victim of gender discrimination” and that her employer was in violation of Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, as well as the Equal Pay Act of 1963. Dukes alleged that Wal-Mart, “routinely

However, “There is ample opportunity for the defendant to show that a statistical disparity is actually caused by something other than a discriminatory employment decision.” In response to the plaintiff’s argument, the defendant could prove that the women were less qualified or interested in the managerial positions, through either quantitative or qualitative data. In the United States, Wal-Mart Stores Inc., “employs more than 1.2 million workers.” Seventy-two percent of Wal-Mart’s employees are females, but when Duke’s claim was filed in 2001, “only one-third of Wal-Mart’s managers were women.” Dukes claims, however, that this figure does not accurately show the reality of Wal-Mart’s discrimination regarding promotions, because many of the female managers hold the lowest level managerial positions available. While women make up seventy-two percent of all employees, only ten percent of all store managers are