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Maetta Vance | |
|---|---|
| Born | 1957 (age 66–67) |
| Occupation | Kitchen worker at Ball State University |
| Known for | Vance v. Ball State University |
Maetta Vance (1957 – present) is a former kitchen worker who served as the plaintiff in the American workplace harassment case Vance v. Ball State University.
Personal life
[edit]Vance, who is African-American, was born in Columbia, Mississippi in 1957, and moved to Chicago, Illinois when she was three years old. After she finished elementary school, she and her family moved to Muncie, Indiana, where Vance attended middle school and Central High School. She joined the staff at Ball State University as a waitress in 1989, where she was often the only African-American employee in the dining services department.[1]
Harassment at Ball State University
[edit]Vance began working at Ball State University in the Banquet and Catering Department in August 1989. She was hired as a waitress, but eventually was promoted to cook.
From 1999 and continuing until April 2006, Vance alleges that she was subject to verbal and physical harassment at the hands of her colleagues in the Banquet and Services Department. The harassment was wide-ranging, and included physical abuse. One white employee, Connie McVicker, referred to Vance as a "porch monkey" and bragged that the McVicker family had ties to the Ku Klux Klan.[2] Another white employee, Saundra Davis, hit Vance on the head on one occasion and slapped her in the face on another.[2] Although Vance filed multiple complaints with the BSU Office of University Compliance in the seven-year period that she worked with Davis, university administrators took no action.
In 2005, Vance filed a three-part claim for race discrimination, gender discrimination, and age discrimination with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission.[3] When the University's newspaper wrote about Vance's complaints, commenters replied that she should "go back to the east side and sell some crack." Although Vance asked the comments be taken down, the University kept them online.[3]
Discrimination Lawsuit
[edit]In 2006, Vance filed a lawsuit in the U.S. District Court Southern District of Indiana, alleging that Ball State University was liable for the abuse she had suffered at the Davis’ hands. Vance claimed that under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, Davis counted as her supervisor, given that Davis had the power to control her daily schedule and generally control her activities on the job.[4]
Both the district court and the Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals ruled in the University’s favor, saying that Davis did not technically count as Vance’s “supervisor” given that Davis could not directly “hire, fire, demote, promote, transfer, or disciple” Vance. Both courts ruled that “periodic authority to direct the work of other employees” did not make Vance a supervisor.[5]
U.S. Supreme Court Case
[edit]The Supreme Court of the United States heard oral arguments in the case on November 26, 2012.[6] On June 24, 2013, the court issued a 5–4 opinion ruling in favor of the Seventh Circuit. In a majority opinion joined by Chief Justice John Roberts and Justices Antonin Scalia, Anthony Kennedy, and Clarence Thomas, Justice Samuel Alito ruled that supervisor liability as laid out by Title VII of the Civil Rights Act only applies to cases when the supervisor has the power to take “tangible employment actions” against the victims.”[7]
In a dissent joined by Justices Stephen Breyer, Elena Kagan, and Sonia Sotomayor, Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg rejected this line of thinking and said it did not reflect the reality of workplace conditions:
"Exposed to a fellow employee's harassment, one can walk away or tell the offender to 'buzz off.' A supervisor's slings and arrows, however, are not so easily avoided. An employee who confronts her harassing supervisor risks, for example, receiving an undesirable or unsafe work assignment or an unwanted transfer. She may be saddled with an excessive workload or with placement on a shift spanning hours disruptive of her family life. And she may be demoted or fired. Facing such dangers, she may be reluctant to blow the whistle on her superior, whose 'power and authority invests his or her harassing conduct with a particular threatening character.'"[4]
Even though Davis could not directly fire Vance, Davis could make Vance’s life miserable and recommend Vance’s firing, Ginsburg noted.
Aftermath
[edit]The ruling, which came out the same week as two high-profile same-sex marriage cases, did not receive much attention when it was originally announced.[4] No studies have yet been conducted on the effect of the Vance ruling on cases brought under Title VII, or on the impact of Vance on workplace harassment lawsuits in general.
- ^ "Workplace harassment: The Maetta Vance case". Star Tribune. Retrieved 2016-05-12.
- ^ a b "FindLaw's United States Seventh Circuit case and opinions". Findlaw. Retrieved 2016-05-12.
- ^ a b "Petition for a writ of certiorari filed" (PDF). SCOTUSblog. October 31, 2011.
- ^ a b c Steiger, Kay. "The Supreme Court Ruling on Workplace Harassment That Got Buried". The Atlantic. Retrieved 2016-05-12.
- ^ Liu, Jenny (2012-11-12). "Vance v. Ball State University". LII / Legal Information Institute. Retrieved 2016-05-12.
- ^ "Vance v. Ball State University". SCOTUSblog. Retrieved 2016-05-12.
- ^ "Vance v. Ball State Univ., 133 S. Ct. 2434, 186 L. Ed. 2d 565, 118 FEP Cases 1481, 81 U.S.L.W. 4553 (2013), Court Opinion". www.bloomberglaw.com. Retrieved 2016-05-12.