September-October 2003

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States Not Exempt from Family Leave Law

In May, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that workers can sue states for violating their federally protected right to unpaid leave in times of family emergencies. The Family and Medical Leave Act (FMLA) of 1993 grants many employees who have been employed for over a year the right to take up to twelve weeks of unpaid leave annually to care for a newborn, a newly adopted child, or an ailing family member. The act also allows workers to seek monetary damages from employers who "interfere with, restrain, or deny the exercise of" this right.

In a 6 to 3 vote, the Court decided in favor of William Hibbs, a Nevada state employee whose employment was terminated after he took leave to care for his injured wife. Lawyers for Hibbs argued that even where family leave policies exist, "men, both in the public and private sectors, receive notoriously discriminatory treatment in their requests for such leave." In the majority opinion, chief justice William H. Rehnquist wrote that "the FMLA aims to protect the right to be free from gender-based discrimination in the workplace." Discrimination includes policies based on the perception of a stereotypically domestic role for women and an assumed lack of male domestic involvement that Rehnquist has previously called a "self-fulfilling cycle of discrimination."

"The Association is delighted that the Court protected the ability of professors and other academic professionals at state institutions to defend themselves against gender discrimination in the workplace based on family responsibilities," says Donna Euben, AAUP staff counsel. The Statement of Principles on Family Responsibilities and Academic Work recently adopted by the Association makes it clear that the academy needs to better support the integration of family and work, especially in the case of junior faculty. Without such support, including the FMLA for faculty at public and private institutions, the commitment to gender equity, for both women and men, will be seriously compromised," Euben says.