Addressing Segregation in the Brown Collar Workplace: Toward a Solution for the Inexorable 100%

Abstract:     
Despite public perceptions to the contrary, segregated workplaces exist in greater numbers today than ever before, largely because of the influx of newly arrived immigrant workers in low-wage industries throughout the country. Yet existing anti-discrimination frameworks no longer operate adequately to rid workplaces of segregated jobs that result from targeting immigrant workers for these jobs. This Article suggests a new anti-discrimination framework to address workplace segregation. The Article reviews how litigants have attempted to rid the workplace of conditions resulting from segregated departments through existing anti-discrimination frameworks. It suggests a simple, yet powerful, shift in the inferences that can be drawn from the inexorability of a segregated workplace. It asks the reader to imagine an inference created from the "inexorable 100," the mirror image of the inexorable zero inference, and a shorthand description for a segregated job category or department within a workplace. The Article proposes a segregation framework that views segregation as an expression of subordinated work conditions, and that offers courts the opportunity to craft broader remedies, both to eliminate segregation and improve the working conditions of segregated workers.

Keywords: employment, labor, immigration

Accepted Paper Series