Workplace bias

High standard set for plaintiffs

Alito has been especially rigid in employment-discrimination cases. Many conservative jurists set a high bar for plaintiffs who allege racial, sex or age bias in the workplace, and Alito has seldom found merit in a bias claim.

He has written in at least 18 discrimination cases and has sided with plaintiffs four times, including once when white police officers claimed that Pittsburgh’s affirmativeaction policy unfairly disadvantaged them, and another time when a mentally disabled grocery worker was fired.

Like his opinions in other areas, Alito’s work in discrimination cases is nearly devoid of explosive or dismissive language. His arguments have been convincing to his colleagues: Thirteen of his rulings were part of 3rd Circuit majority opinions.

But in most of the employmentcases, Alito succeeded in applying a standard higher than the Supreme Court requires to plaintiffs’

claims, often forcing them to prove that bias was the motivation behind their misfortunes, not just that the bias harmed them.

In two cases, Alito dissented from 3rd Circuit rulings that allowed discrimination claims to proceed. In one, a racial-discrimination case involving a black hotel maid, Alito agreed that the woman had been treated unfairly, but he said the employer had produced enough evidence to show that the unfair treatment didn’t amount to illegal discrimination. if she