Supreme Court ruling makes it easier for employees to sue over forced job transfers

The Supreme Court just made it harder for employers to transfer employees to different roles against their will, widening the path for affected workers to sue for discrimination.

In a rare unanimous decision, the court ruled in favor of the plaintiff in Muldrow v. City of St. Louis, finding the city violated the 1964 Civil Rights Act.

Jatonya Muldrow was an officer with the St. Louis Police Department, where she served in the intelligence division for nine years. When a new commander joined her division in 2017, he transferred Muldrow to a different department and replaced her with a man, Reuters reported. While the new role overseeing patrol officers paid the same, it was less prestigious and involved weekend shifts, which her previous role didn’t require.

Muldrow sued the city for discrimination but lost in lower courts; a federal appeals court claimed she hadn’t proved enough of an employment disadvantage, according to the New York Times.

The main question for the Supreme Court was whether the law protects against all discriminatory job transfers, and not just ones that cause significant harm.

The City of St. Louis was found to have violated Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which prohibits discrimination against protected classes including race and sex. “Although an employee must show some harm from a forced transfer to prevail in a Title VII suit, she need not show that the injury satisfies a significance test,” Justice Elena Kagan wrote in the court’s ruling. In a concurring opinion, Justice Brett Kavanaugh said that the discrimination itself was enough harm.

“Today’s ruling strengthens the protections from discrimination intended by Title VII by solidifying workers’ right to have and experience consistent expectations on the privileges and conditions of their employment,” Gillian Wilcox, deputy director for litigation at the ACLU of Missouri, said in a statement.

Muldrow’s lawsuit now “returns to lower courts,” ABC News reported.