An employer hiring someone who lacks job qualifications cannot use the absence of those same qualifications in another applicant as a basis of rejection, the Court ruled. A female had twice applied for a locksmith position along with male applicants; none of the applicants had the requisite work experience. Although the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission and a lower court had rejected her discrimination complaint, the Third Circuit said that she had established enough of a case to go to trial.

A 25-year-military veteran who was denied a position as a terrorism specialist with the Library of Congress because she was transitioning from male to female was discriminated against because of her sex, the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia rules.

The Library said that it had a number of nondiscriminatory reasons for refusing to hire the claimant, bringing up concerns about her ability to maintain or timely receive a security clearance, her trustworthiness, and the potential that her transition would distract her from her job. The Library also argued that a hiring decision based on transsexuality was not unlawful discrimination under Title VII. The court finds the reasons presented by the employer to be pretextual and to lack credibility.

The court says there was direct and compelling evidence that the “hiring decision was infected by sex stereotypes.” The decision-maker “admitted that when she viewed the photographs of [the claimant] in traditionally feminine attire, with a feminine hairstyle and makeup, she saw a man in women’s clothing.” The court also points out that the decision-maker “testified that her difficulty comprehending [the claimant’s] decision to undergo a gender transition was heightened because she viewed [the claimant] not just as a man, but, in light of her Special Forces background, as a particularly masculine kind of man.”

“In refusing to hire [the claimant] because her appearance and background did not comport with the decisionmaker’s sex stereotypes about how men and women should act and appear, and in response to [the claimant’s] decision to transition, legally, culturally, and physically, from male to female, the Library of Congress violated Title VII’s prohibition on sex discrimination,” the court decides. Schroer v. Billington

Although agreeing that the administrators of juvenile detention facilities, like those of female correctional facilities, “are entitled to substantial deference” when fashioning their employment policies, the Seventh Circuit rules that this discretion is not unlimited.

The Court revives a sex discrimination complaint brought by two female correctional officers who challenged a policy that required each unit of a juvenile detention facility to be staffed at all times by at least one officer of the same sex as the detainees housed on that unit. Since there were far more male units than female units at the facility, this policy had the effect of reducing the number of shifts available for female officers, and also reducing their opportunities for premium pay and overtime. Although a lower court decided that the gender-based policy was a bona fide occupational qualification, the Court reverses, finding that the employer did not prove that its sex-based assignments were “reasonably necessary” to achieve its goals.

“A defendant ultimately must introduce sufficient evidence to prove that the administrator’s judgment—that a particular sex classification is reasonably necessary to the normal operation of the institution—is ‘the product of a reasoned decision-making process, based on available information and experience,’” the Court says. Henry v. Milwaukee County

A transsexual bus driver who was terminated over the concern about which restroom she would use before her gender reassignment surgery was not protected by Title VII’s sex discrimination prohibition, the Tenth Circuit rules. The Court says “the plain language of the statute” guides its interpretation, stating “there is nothing in the record to support the conclusion that the plain meaning of ‘sex’ encompasses anything more than male and female.” Transsexual employees would only be protected if they were discriminated against because they were male or female, not because of their status as a transsexual, says the Court. Etsitty v. Utah Transit Authority.

A female employee who claimed that she was terminated for taking time off from work to undergo in vitro fertilization has stated a “cognizable sex-discrimination claim” under the Pregnancy Discrimination Act, the Seventh Circuit says, reversing a lower court dismissal of the case.

The lower court had ruled that the claimant could not prove sex discrimination because infertility was a “gender neutral condition.” The Seventh Circuit disagrees, stating: “Employees terminated for taking time off to undergo IVF—just like those terminated for taking time off to give birth or receive other pregnancy-related care—will always be women.” Thus, the employee in this case “was terminated not for the gender-neutral condition of infertility, but rather for the gender-specific quality of childbearing capacity.” Hall v. Nalco Company