Question: Dothard v. Rawlinson 433 U.S. 321 (1977)

After her application for employment as an Alabama prison guard was rejected because she failed to meet the minimum 120-pound weight, 5-foot-2-inch height requirement of an Alabama statute, the applicant sued, challenging the statutory height and weight requirements as violative of Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. The Supreme Court found gender discrimination.

Stewart, J.

At the time she applied for a position as a correctional counselor trainee, Rawlinson was a 22-year-old college graduate whose major course of study had been correctional psychology. She was refused employment because she failed to meet the minimum 120-pound weight requirement established by an Alabama statute. The statute stated that the applicant shall not be less than five feet two inches nor more than six feet ten inches in height, shall weigh not less than 120 pounds nor more than 300 pounds. Variances could be granted upon a showing of good cause, but none had ever been applied for by the Board and the Board did not apprise applicants of the waiver possibility. In considering the effect of the minimum height and weight standards on this disparity in rate of hiring between genders, the district court found that when the height and weight restrictions are combined, Alabama's statutory standards would exclude 41.13% of the female population while excluding less than 1% of the male population.

In enacting Title VII, Congress required "the removal of artificial, arbitrary, and unnecessary barriers to employment when the barriers operate invidiously to discriminate on the basis of racial or other impermissible classification." The District Court found the minimum height and weight requirements constitute the sort of arbitrary barrier to equal employment opportunity that Title VII forbids. This claim does not involve an assertion of purposeful discriminatory motive. It is asserted, rather, that these facially neutral qualification standards work in fact disproportionately to exclude women from eligibility for employment by the Alabama Board of Corrections. We turn to Alabama's argument that they have rebutted the prima facie case of discrimination by showing that the height and weight requirements are job related. These requirements, they say, have a relationship to strength, a sufficient but unspecified amount of which is essential to effective job performance as a correctional counselor.

In the district court, however, they failed to offer evidence of any kind in specific justification of the statutory standards. If the job-related quality that the Board identifies is bona fide, their purpose could be achieved by adopting and validating a test for applicants that measures strength directly. But nothing in the present record even approaches such a measurement. The district court was not in error in holding that Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 prohibits application of the statutory height and weight requirements to Rawlinson and the class she represents. AFFIRMED in part, REVERSED in part, and REMANDED.

1. What purpose did the height and weight requirements serve? Do you think they were made to intentionally discriminate against women?

2. How could management have avoided this outcome?

3. Does your view of illegal discrimination change now that you have seen how disparate impact claims work? Would you have been able to foresee this outcome? Explain.