U.S. Supreme Court lowers burden for Title VII claims based on job transfers

Many federal courts—including the U.S. 10th Circuit Court of Appeals (whose rulings apply to all employers in Oklahoma and Kansas)—have long required employees alleging discrimination claims under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 arising from a job transfer to show they suffered “significant harm” as a result of the job change. Recently, the U.S. Supreme Court threw that “significant harm” standard out the window. Now, an employee need only show that a job transfer causes “some harm” to make a Title VII discrimination claim. You should now be more cautious when transferring employees to different jobs and should expect more charges and litigation related to transfers.

Female police officer sues department after job transfer

Sergeant Jatonya Clayborn Muldrow served on the St. Louis police force. For many years, she worked as a plain clothes police officer who oversaw the Gang Unit, held other leadership positions, and was afforded certain job perks in her role. For example, she had FBI credentials that authorized her to have a take-home vehicle and pursue investigations outside of St. Louis.

Later, a new division commander decided to move Muldrow to a uniformed officer position against her wishes. The new commander would sometimes call her “Mrs.” rather than “Sergeant” and replaced her with a male officer whom he felt was a better fit for the “very dangerous” work.