Reference no: EM131315684

Read  The Supreme Court's decision in the case and then answer in 200 word the question below.

The Supreme Court's decision in the case of the United Steelworkers of America v. Weber (1979) appeared to have important implications for organizational training and development practices and for the larger issue of reverse discrimination.⁶¹ In 1974, Kaiser Aluminum and the United Steelworkers Union set up a temporary training program for higher-paying skilled trade jobs, such as electrician and repairer, at a Kaiser plant in Louisiana. Brian Weber, a white employee at the plant who was not selected for the training program, sued on the grounds that he had been illegally discriminated against. He argued that African Americans with less seniority were selected over him to attend the training due solely to their race. The question facing the Court was whether it is fair to discriminate against whites to help African Americans who have been longtime victims of discrimination. The justices said that Kaiser could choose to give special job preferences to African Americans without fear of being harassed by reverse discrimination suits brought by other employees. The ruling was an endorsement of voluntary affirmative action efforts-goals and timetables for bringing an organization's minority and female workforce up to the percentages they represent in the available labor pool.

Failure to document decisions on business necessity may lead to serious challenges.

Despite the press coverage that both cases received, many questions remained unanswered. Just how far was a company permitted to go regarding preferential treatment? In subsequent cases, more information became available. In 1984, the Supreme Court ruled in Firefighters Local 1784 v. Stotts⁶² that when facing a layoff situation, affirmative action may not take precedence over a seniority system: that is, the last in (often minorities) may be the first to go. This decision was further reinforced in Wyant v. Jackson Board of Education (1986),⁶³ when the Supreme Court ruled that a collective bargaining agreement giving preferential treatment to preserve minority jobs in the event of a layoff was illegal. On the contrary, in Johnson v. Santa Clara County Transportation (1987) the Supreme Court did permit affirmative action goals to correct worker imbalances as long as the rights of nonminorities were protected. This ruling had an effect of potentially reducing reverse discrimination claims.

A more recent case, Ricci v. DeStefano, involved a group of firefighters in New Haven, Connecticut who won a ruling from the U.S. Supreme Court in 2009 declaring that they were victims of reverse discrimination. In that case, a group of firefighters took an exam required for promotion and although care was taken to make sure the exam was fair and nondiscriminatory, no African American firefighters passed the exam. They threatened to sue the city, claiming disparate impact. In an effort to prevent a lawsuit, the city threw out the exam and didn't certify any firefighters for promotion. The white firefighters and two Hispanic firefighters who passed the test filed a complaint that they suffered reverse discrimination due to their race. The Supreme Court ruled that the city had indeed violated Title VII and that throwing out the results of the exam was discriminatory.

The implications of these cases may be somewhat confusing. The conclusion one needs to draw from these is that any HRM practice may be challenged by anyone. HRM must be able to defend its practices if necessary and explain the basis and the parameters on which the decisions were made. Failure to document or to base the decisions on business necessities may lead to serious challenges to the action taken.

Question: Discuss the decision of the Supreme Court and its relation to Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 in 200 words