Petitioner
E. C. Dothard, et al.
Respondent
Dianne Rawlinson, et al.
Petitioner's Claim
That an Alabama law establishing height and weight requirements for state prison guards and barring women from serving as guards in male prisons was permissible under federal civil rights law.
Chief Lawyer for Petitioner
C. Daniel Evans
Chief Lawyer for Respondent
Pamela S. Horowitz
Justices for the Court
Harry A. Blackmun, William J. Brennan, Jr., Warren E. Burger, Thurgood Marshall, Lewis F. Powell, Jr., William H. Rehnquist, John Paul Stevens, Potter Stewart (writing for the Court)
Justices Dissenting
Byron R. White
Place
Washington, D.C.
Date of Decision
27 June 1977
Decision
Alabama's ban on women prison guards was permissible under federal civil rights law, but its height and weight requirements were not.
Significance
The Supreme Court's decision in Dothard v. Rawlinson clarified the Court's interpretation of Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964.
Case Background
Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 bars discrimination in hiring basedon gender. It has also been interpreted to prohibit other forms of discrimination, which, while not specifically based on gender, serve by indirect meansto eliminate women from a pool of job applicants. The case of Dianne Rawlinson tested the Supreme Court's understanding of this law.
Rawlinson, a citizen of the state of Alabama, applied for a job as a state prison guard. Her application was rejected because she failed to meet a state requirement that all prison guards must be at least 5 feet 2 inches tall and weigh a minimum of 120 pounds. A separate regulation prohibited women from serving as guards in maximum security male prisons in positions that involve close contact with inmates. Rawlinson filed a complaint with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) and brought a class action lawsuit against Alabama corrections officials, challenging the height and weight requirements and the "close contact" regulation. She claimed these rules violated her rights under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. The case first went beforea three-judge panel of the U.S. District Court for the Middle District of Alabama.
The District Court Rules
The district court ruled in Rawlinson's favor on both counts. It relied on national statistics that outlined the comparative heights and weights of men and women to show that the Alabama prison guard requirements would exclude morethan 40 percent of the female population but less than one percent of the male population. The court held that this, on its face, was evidence of sex discrimination against women. On the issue of the "close contact" prohibition, the district court rejected the state of Alabama's contention that being malewas a necessary qualification for serving as a guard in a male penitentiary.It decreed that this regulation was impermissible under Title VII as well. E.C. Dothard, the director of Alabama's Department of Public Safety, then appealed the case to the U.S. Supreme Court on the state's behalf.
A Split Decision
On 27 June 1977, the Supreme Court ruled on the case. In a split decision, the Court affirmed part of the district court's ruling and rejected another part. Specifically, the majority affirmed the lower court's ruling that the height and weight requirement was discriminatory on its face, but rejected the claim that the banning of women from close contact positions in male prisons was a violation of civil rights law.
On the first question, the Court held that Rawlinson had indeed shown evidence of employment discrimination by pointing out, through the use of national statistics, the disproportionate impact in hiring the height and weight standards had on women as opposed to men. Furthermore, the Court found that the state of Alabama had done nothing to show that the height and weight requirements had any relationship to job performance on the grounds that size or strength was a necessary condition for employment as a prison guard. The state of Alabama, Justice Stewart wrote in his majority opinion, "produced no evidence correlating the height and weight requirements with the requisite amount of strength thought essential to good job performance. Indeed, they failed to offer evidence of any kind in specific justification of the statutory standards."
But Stewart and the rest of the majority parted company with the district court on the issue of the "close contact" prohibition. The Supreme Court considered this regulation a "bona fide occupational qualification" and therefore not grounds for a discrimination complaint under Title VII. In defendingthis assertion, the Court cited the violent atmosphere of male penitentiaries, the close contact with guards necessitated by dormitory style living arrangements and chronic understaffing, and the presence of sex offenders in the prison population. The Court concluded that the presence of female guards would therefore pose a significant security problem. "A woman's relative abilityto maintain order in a male, maximum-security, unclassified penitentiary of the type Alabama now runs could be directly reduced by her womanhood," wrote Justice Stewart. "There would also be a real risk that other inmates, deprivedof a normal heterosexual environment, would assault women guards because they were women."
Dissenting Opinions
Only one full dissent occurred in the case. Justice White argued that Rawlinson had not shown a discriminatory hiring pattern due to the height and weightrequirement because she relied on height and weight statistics about the population at large and not the pool of applicants for prison guard positions inAlabama. In his opinion, therefore, Rawlinson did not meet the weight requirement to serve as a prison guard and should have had no grounds to sue on theissue of the "close contact" provision.
Other dissenting opinions came from Justices Marshall and Brennan, who concurred with the Court's position as to the height and weight requirement, but disagreed with the ruling on "close contact." These two justices argued that noevidence existed to show that women prison guards are at any more risk of attack by inmates than male prison guards. They also asserted that violent behavior among the prison population should not be used as an excuse for denyingjob opportunities to female applicants
Impact
The Supreme Court's decision in Dothard v. Rawlinson was referred to in a number of subsequent sex discrimination cases.
Related Cases
E. C. Dothard, et al.
Respondent
Dianne Rawlinson, et al.
Petitioner's Claim
That an Alabama law establishing height and weight requirements for state prison guards and barring women from serving as guards in male prisons was permissible under federal civil rights law.
Chief Lawyer for Petitioner
C. Daniel Evans
Chief Lawyer for Respondent
Pamela S. Horowitz
Justices for the Court
Harry A. Blackmun, William J. Brennan, Jr., Warren E. Burger, Thurgood Marshall, Lewis F. Powell, Jr., William H. Rehnquist, John Paul Stevens, Potter Stewart (writing for the Court)
Justices Dissenting
Byron R. White
Place
Washington, D.C.
Date of Decision
27 June 1977
Decision
Alabama's ban on women prison guards was permissible under federal civil rights law, but its height and weight requirements were not.
Significance
The Supreme Court's decision in Dothard v. Rawlinson clarified the Court's interpretation of Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964.
Case Background
Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 bars discrimination in hiring basedon gender. It has also been interpreted to prohibit other forms of discrimination, which, while not specifically based on gender, serve by indirect meansto eliminate women from a pool of job applicants. The case of Dianne Rawlinson tested the Supreme Court's understanding of this law.
Rawlinson, a citizen of the state of Alabama, applied for a job as a state prison guard. Her application was rejected because she failed to meet a state requirement that all prison guards must be at least 5 feet 2 inches tall and weigh a minimum of 120 pounds. A separate regulation prohibited women from serving as guards in maximum security male prisons in positions that involve close contact with inmates. Rawlinson filed a complaint with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) and brought a class action lawsuit against Alabama corrections officials, challenging the height and weight requirements and the "close contact" regulation. She claimed these rules violated her rights under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. The case first went beforea three-judge panel of the U.S. District Court for the Middle District of Alabama.
The District Court Rules
The district court ruled in Rawlinson's favor on both counts. It relied on national statistics that outlined the comparative heights and weights of men and women to show that the Alabama prison guard requirements would exclude morethan 40 percent of the female population but less than one percent of the male population. The court held that this, on its face, was evidence of sex discrimination against women. On the issue of the "close contact" prohibition, the district court rejected the state of Alabama's contention that being malewas a necessary qualification for serving as a guard in a male penitentiary.It decreed that this regulation was impermissible under Title VII as well. E.C. Dothard, the director of Alabama's Department of Public Safety, then appealed the case to the U.S. Supreme Court on the state's behalf.
A Split Decision
On 27 June 1977, the Supreme Court ruled on the case. In a split decision, the Court affirmed part of the district court's ruling and rejected another part. Specifically, the majority affirmed the lower court's ruling that the height and weight requirement was discriminatory on its face, but rejected the claim that the banning of women from close contact positions in male prisons was a violation of civil rights law.
On the first question, the Court held that Rawlinson had indeed shown evidence of employment discrimination by pointing out, through the use of national statistics, the disproportionate impact in hiring the height and weight standards had on women as opposed to men. Furthermore, the Court found that the state of Alabama had done nothing to show that the height and weight requirements had any relationship to job performance on the grounds that size or strength was a necessary condition for employment as a prison guard. The state of Alabama, Justice Stewart wrote in his majority opinion, "produced no evidence correlating the height and weight requirements with the requisite amount of strength thought essential to good job performance. Indeed, they failed to offer evidence of any kind in specific justification of the statutory standards."
But Stewart and the rest of the majority parted company with the district court on the issue of the "close contact" prohibition. The Supreme Court considered this regulation a "bona fide occupational qualification" and therefore not grounds for a discrimination complaint under Title VII. In defendingthis assertion, the Court cited the violent atmosphere of male penitentiaries, the close contact with guards necessitated by dormitory style living arrangements and chronic understaffing, and the presence of sex offenders in the prison population. The Court concluded that the presence of female guards would therefore pose a significant security problem. "A woman's relative abilityto maintain order in a male, maximum-security, unclassified penitentiary of the type Alabama now runs could be directly reduced by her womanhood," wrote Justice Stewart. "There would also be a real risk that other inmates, deprivedof a normal heterosexual environment, would assault women guards because they were women."
Dissenting Opinions
Only one full dissent occurred in the case. Justice White argued that Rawlinson had not shown a discriminatory hiring pattern due to the height and weightrequirement because she relied on height and weight statistics about the population at large and not the pool of applicants for prison guard positions inAlabama. In his opinion, therefore, Rawlinson did not meet the weight requirement to serve as a prison guard and should have had no grounds to sue on theissue of the "close contact" provision.
Other dissenting opinions came from Justices Marshall and Brennan, who concurred with the Court's position as to the height and weight requirement, but disagreed with the ruling on "close contact." These two justices argued that noevidence existed to show that women prison guards are at any more risk of attack by inmates than male prison guards. They also asserted that violent behavior among the prison population should not be used as an excuse for denyingjob opportunities to female applicants
Impact
The Supreme Court's decision in Dothard v. Rawlinson was referred to in a number of subsequent sex discrimination cases.
Related Cases
- Furnco Construction Corp. v. Waters, 438 U.S. 567 (1978).
- Connecticut v. Teal, 457 U.S. 440 (1982).
- Wards Cove Packing v. Atonio, 490 U.S. 642 (1989).
- Automobile Workers v. Johnson Controls, Inc., 499 U.S. 187 (1991).
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