Petitioners
Cleveland Board of Education, et al.
Respondents
Jo Carol LaFleur, Ann Elizabeth Nelson
Petitioners' Claim
That a school board policy mandating that pregnant teachers go on an unpaid leave of absence beginning five months before the expected birth of the childand ending the school semester after the child is three months old was constitutional under the Fourteenth Amendment.
Chief Lawyer for Petitioners
Charles F. Clarke
Chief Lawyer for Respondents
Jane M. Picker
Justices for the Court
Harry A. Blackmun, William J. Brennan, Jr., William O. Douglas, Thurgood Marshall, Lewis F. Powell, Jr., Potter Stewart (writing for the Court), Byron R.White
Justices Dissenting
Warren E. Burger, William H. Rehnquist
Place
Washington, D.C.
Date of Decision
21 January 1974
Decision
Denied the petitioners' claim and upheld the ruling of the court of appeals that the school board's policy regarding mandatory unpaid leave for pregnant teachers violated the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment and was not legally binding.
Significance
The ruling represented a watershed for cases involving workplace discrimination on the basis of gender. Because different individuals were judged to be capable of working further into their pregnancies than the school board's maternity leave policy would allow, that policy was judged to be overbroad. By using this reasoning in reaching its decision, the Court established that all corporate maternity leave schemes, in order to be constitutional, must be formed so as to allow women to work as long, and to return to their jobs as soon,as they are medically fit to do so. This, in turn, meant the end of mandatorymaternity leave policies.
Mandatory Maternity Leave
The second half of the twentieth century witnessed a rapid expansion of the role and status of women outside the home. As women increasingly occupied important positions in business and the professions, they were often faced with archaic rules governing gender-related health issues. Among such rules were those that enabled employers to dismiss or force into unpaid leave of absence those workers who became pregnant. Just such a rule was maintained by the Cleveland, Ohio school board to govern maternity leave. Under the policy, pregnant teachers were required to go on unpaid leave beginning five months before the expected birth date of their child. Furthermore, teachers were not allowedto return to work under the policy until the semester following their child's attaining the age of three months, subject to medical approval.
During the 1970-71 school year Cleveland, Ohio junior high school teachers JoCarol LaFleur and Mary Elizabeth Nelson informed the school board that theywere pregnant, and were forced to go on unpaid leave in March of 1971 in accordance with the policy. Neither LaFleur nor Wilson wished to take their leaveat that time, preferring instead to wait until the end of the school year inJune. As such, they each brought suit against the school board in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Ohio, challenging the constitutionality of the policy. The district court rejected LaFleur and Nelson's contentions, holding that the policy was constitutional. The respondents then appealed the case to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit, which reversed the decision of the district court on the grounds that the policy violatedthe Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. The school board then appealed the case to the U.S. Supreme Court, which heard arguments on the matter on 15 October 1973.
A Violation of Due Process?
The Court held the policy to be unconstitutional under the Due Process Clauseof the Fourteenth Amendment by a 7-2 margin. Writing for the majority, Justice Stewart noted that the Court had long since established that "freedom of personal choice in matters of marriage and family life is one of the libertiesprotected by the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment" in numerouscases, including Prince v. Massachusetts (1944), Griswold v. Connecticut (1965), and Roe v. Wade (1973). As such, any policy of an employer regarding employees who decide to become pregnant must not "needlessly, arbitrarily, or capriciously impinge upon this vital area of a [person's]constitutional liberty." In fact, the school board had argued along these lines, advancing the position that the maternity leave policy was essential to maintaining "continuity of classroom instruction" for its students. Sending teachers on their enforced maternity leave so long before their due date, the school board argued, was an administrative imperative given the difficulty ofsecuring a long-term substitute teacher and the necessity of insuring that pregnant teachers did not become debilitated on the job.
In rejecting the school board's arguments, the Court observed that the policycould, in fact, impede the continuity of classroom instruction, depending upon the point in the school year at which the teacher was forced to go on leave. Furthermore, the physical ability to remain on the job while pregnant varied greatly among individual women, rendering any policy mandating that all pregnant women cease work at the same point in their pregnancies arbitrary. TheCourt maintained that the only way to determine a pregnant woman's fitness to continue in her job was on a strictly medical basis.
The Court also ruled that the policy's provisions for the return to work of women that were on maternity leave were unconstitutional under the Due ProcessClause. Once again, given the differing physical capacities of individuals,any policy dictating the time of return for all workers was, by definition, arbitrary. The school board could continue to require teachers wishing to return to work following maternity leave to first secure verification of their fitness from a physician.
Impact
Cleveland Board of Education v. LaFleur marked a milestone in the legal status of women in the workplace. With mandatory maternity leaves, not to mention the arbitrary firing of employees who became pregnant, rendered effectively unconstitutional, employers were forced to devise human resources policies more accommodating to the unique needs of women. Significantly, however,the Court found the policy unconstitutional with regard to the Due Process Clause and not the Equal Protection Cause as the respondents had originally argued. As such, this case was of limited value as a legal precedent for other cases involving the rights of women in the workplace. This legal limitation was soon demonstrated in Geduldig v. Aiello (1974), in which the Court ruled that the state of California did not have to offer medical coverage of pregnancy-related medical expenses for its employees. In the end, it took legislative activity in the form of the Pregnancy Discrimination Act of 1978 to establish that employers must treat pregnancy as any other physical condition.
Related Cases
Maternity Leave
In December of 1997, the women's magazine Redbook ran a long series ofarticles advising women how to make the most of the maternity-leave opportunities afforded by the Family and Medical Leave Act of 1993. The latter guarantees 12 weeks of unpaid leave for the 2.1 million working American women whogive birth or adopt children each year, but according to the article, its provisions do not go far enough.
Yet there was a time when expectations were much lower, a time when Martha Gilbert and other female employees at various General Electric plants in Virginia filed lawsuits against an employer who--like many in the 1970s and before--simply made no provisions whatever for maternity leave. The case came beforethe Supreme Court as General Electric Co. v. Gilbert (1976), and though the company won the appeal, Gilbert and other women ultimately won: in 1978, President Jimmy Carter signed legislation adding provisions regarding pregnancy discrimination to the Civil Rights Act of 1964.
Sources
Eberlein, Tamara. "Get the Best Maternity Leave for You (and Your Baby)." Redbook, December 1997.
Sturgeon, Jeff. "General Electric Workers' Suit Paved Way for Paid MaternityLeave." Knight-Ridder/Tribune Business News, 12 October 1998.
Cleveland Board of Education, et al.
Respondents
Jo Carol LaFleur, Ann Elizabeth Nelson
Petitioners' Claim
That a school board policy mandating that pregnant teachers go on an unpaid leave of absence beginning five months before the expected birth of the childand ending the school semester after the child is three months old was constitutional under the Fourteenth Amendment.
Chief Lawyer for Petitioners
Charles F. Clarke
Chief Lawyer for Respondents
Jane M. Picker
Justices for the Court
Harry A. Blackmun, William J. Brennan, Jr., William O. Douglas, Thurgood Marshall, Lewis F. Powell, Jr., Potter Stewart (writing for the Court), Byron R.White
Justices Dissenting
Warren E. Burger, William H. Rehnquist
Place
Washington, D.C.
Date of Decision
21 January 1974
Decision
Denied the petitioners' claim and upheld the ruling of the court of appeals that the school board's policy regarding mandatory unpaid leave for pregnant teachers violated the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment and was not legally binding.
Significance
The ruling represented a watershed for cases involving workplace discrimination on the basis of gender. Because different individuals were judged to be capable of working further into their pregnancies than the school board's maternity leave policy would allow, that policy was judged to be overbroad. By using this reasoning in reaching its decision, the Court established that all corporate maternity leave schemes, in order to be constitutional, must be formed so as to allow women to work as long, and to return to their jobs as soon,as they are medically fit to do so. This, in turn, meant the end of mandatorymaternity leave policies.
Mandatory Maternity Leave
The second half of the twentieth century witnessed a rapid expansion of the role and status of women outside the home. As women increasingly occupied important positions in business and the professions, they were often faced with archaic rules governing gender-related health issues. Among such rules were those that enabled employers to dismiss or force into unpaid leave of absence those workers who became pregnant. Just such a rule was maintained by the Cleveland, Ohio school board to govern maternity leave. Under the policy, pregnant teachers were required to go on unpaid leave beginning five months before the expected birth date of their child. Furthermore, teachers were not allowedto return to work under the policy until the semester following their child's attaining the age of three months, subject to medical approval.
During the 1970-71 school year Cleveland, Ohio junior high school teachers JoCarol LaFleur and Mary Elizabeth Nelson informed the school board that theywere pregnant, and were forced to go on unpaid leave in March of 1971 in accordance with the policy. Neither LaFleur nor Wilson wished to take their leaveat that time, preferring instead to wait until the end of the school year inJune. As such, they each brought suit against the school board in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Ohio, challenging the constitutionality of the policy. The district court rejected LaFleur and Nelson's contentions, holding that the policy was constitutional. The respondents then appealed the case to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit, which reversed the decision of the district court on the grounds that the policy violatedthe Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. The school board then appealed the case to the U.S. Supreme Court, which heard arguments on the matter on 15 October 1973.
A Violation of Due Process?
The Court held the policy to be unconstitutional under the Due Process Clauseof the Fourteenth Amendment by a 7-2 margin. Writing for the majority, Justice Stewart noted that the Court had long since established that "freedom of personal choice in matters of marriage and family life is one of the libertiesprotected by the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment" in numerouscases, including Prince v. Massachusetts (1944), Griswold v. Connecticut (1965), and Roe v. Wade (1973). As such, any policy of an employer regarding employees who decide to become pregnant must not "needlessly, arbitrarily, or capriciously impinge upon this vital area of a [person's]constitutional liberty." In fact, the school board had argued along these lines, advancing the position that the maternity leave policy was essential to maintaining "continuity of classroom instruction" for its students. Sending teachers on their enforced maternity leave so long before their due date, the school board argued, was an administrative imperative given the difficulty ofsecuring a long-term substitute teacher and the necessity of insuring that pregnant teachers did not become debilitated on the job.
In rejecting the school board's arguments, the Court observed that the policycould, in fact, impede the continuity of classroom instruction, depending upon the point in the school year at which the teacher was forced to go on leave. Furthermore, the physical ability to remain on the job while pregnant varied greatly among individual women, rendering any policy mandating that all pregnant women cease work at the same point in their pregnancies arbitrary. TheCourt maintained that the only way to determine a pregnant woman's fitness to continue in her job was on a strictly medical basis.
The Court also ruled that the policy's provisions for the return to work of women that were on maternity leave were unconstitutional under the Due ProcessClause. Once again, given the differing physical capacities of individuals,any policy dictating the time of return for all workers was, by definition, arbitrary. The school board could continue to require teachers wishing to return to work following maternity leave to first secure verification of their fitness from a physician.
Impact
Cleveland Board of Education v. LaFleur marked a milestone in the legal status of women in the workplace. With mandatory maternity leaves, not to mention the arbitrary firing of employees who became pregnant, rendered effectively unconstitutional, employers were forced to devise human resources policies more accommodating to the unique needs of women. Significantly, however,the Court found the policy unconstitutional with regard to the Due Process Clause and not the Equal Protection Cause as the respondents had originally argued. As such, this case was of limited value as a legal precedent for other cases involving the rights of women in the workplace. This legal limitation was soon demonstrated in Geduldig v. Aiello (1974), in which the Court ruled that the state of California did not have to offer medical coverage of pregnancy-related medical expenses for its employees. In the end, it took legislative activity in the form of the Pregnancy Discrimination Act of 1978 to establish that employers must treat pregnancy as any other physical condition.
Related Cases
- Prince v. Massachusetts, 321 U.S. 158 (1944).
- Griswold v. Connecticut, 381 U.S. 479 (1965).
- Roe v. Wade, 410 U.S. 113 (1973).
- Geduldig v. Aiello, 417 U.S. 484 (1974).
Maternity Leave
In December of 1997, the women's magazine Redbook ran a long series ofarticles advising women how to make the most of the maternity-leave opportunities afforded by the Family and Medical Leave Act of 1993. The latter guarantees 12 weeks of unpaid leave for the 2.1 million working American women whogive birth or adopt children each year, but according to the article, its provisions do not go far enough.
Yet there was a time when expectations were much lower, a time when Martha Gilbert and other female employees at various General Electric plants in Virginia filed lawsuits against an employer who--like many in the 1970s and before--simply made no provisions whatever for maternity leave. The case came beforethe Supreme Court as General Electric Co. v. Gilbert (1976), and though the company won the appeal, Gilbert and other women ultimately won: in 1978, President Jimmy Carter signed legislation adding provisions regarding pregnancy discrimination to the Civil Rights Act of 1964.
Sources
Eberlein, Tamara. "Get the Best Maternity Leave for You (and Your Baby)." Redbook, December 1997.
Sturgeon, Jeff. "General Electric Workers' Suit Paved Way for Paid MaternityLeave." Knight-Ridder/Tribune Business News, 12 October 1998.
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