Sex Discrimination: Theories and Defenses under Title VII and Burwell v. Eastern Airlines, Inc.

Following the enactment of Title VII of the Civil Rights Act in 1964 dealing with equal opportunity and employment discrimination, there arose a large body of case-law litigating Title VII issues and a large body of articles dissecting the cases and issues. Within this area, different methods for proving Title VII violations and different types of defenses developed. Almost inevitably, confusion arose concerning the applicability of specific defenses to specific types of Title VII violations. The Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals attempted to resolve some of this confusion in a sex discrimination case captioned Burwell v. Eastern Airlines, Inc. In Burwell, female flight attendants brought an action under section 703(a) of Title VII claiming that various aspects of Eastern\u27s employment practices were discriminatory on the basis of sex. The two issues that survived for appellate review were Eastern\u27s practice of divesting pregnant female flight attendants of accumulated seniority when they transferred to ground positions, and Eastern\u27s policy requiring female flight attendants to take maternity leave immediately upon learning of their pregnancy. At Eastern, all temporarily disabled flight attendants could transfer to ground positions and continue to accumulate seniority. In practice, though, pregnant flight attendants who transferred to ground positions lost all rights to retain accumulated seniority. Eastern implemented this practice because it did not consider pregnancy a disability within the terms of its general transfer policy. The stewardesses charged that this transfer policy, although facially neutral, discriminatorily impacted upon them. The other relevant policy of Eastern required all female flight attendants to begin an unpaid maternity leave immediately upon knowledge of their pregnancy. All pregnant attendants were required to leave regardless of individual ability to continue working. The stewardesses claimed that this practice also discriminated against females. With respect to the transfer policy and the requirement to take maternity leave before the twenty-eighth week of pregnancy, the district court held the plaintiffs had made out a prima facie case of sex discrimination which Eastern could not justify as a business necessity or a bona fide occupational qualification (BFOQ). The district court did hold, however, that being less than twenty-eight weeks pregnant was a BFOQ for which Eastern could require flight attendants to cease flight duties. Eastern appealed this decision to the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals. Based upon the Supreme Court decision in Nashville Gas Co. v. Satty, a unanimous court affirmed the district court\u27s holding on the transfer policy issue. The circuit court divided on the mandatory maternity leave issue. Following the district court\u27s separation of this issue into the three trimesters of pregnancy, the justices divided as follows: (1) a majority affirmed the district court\u27s invalidation of Eastern\u27s mandatory leave during the first thirteen weeks of pregnancy and three justices dissented; (2) a majority reversed the district court\u27s invalidation of the maternity leave policy during the thirteenth through twenty-eighth weeks of pregnancy, with four dissenters; and (3) a unanimous court affirmed the district court\u27s upholding of the mandatory leave after the twenty-eighth week of pregnancy. In reaching its decision, the circuit court in Burwell noted the confusion about which of two possible defenses-the bona fide occupational qualification (BFOQ) or the business necessity-should apply in a sex discrimination case. Focusing upon the type of theory used to prove the Title VII violation, the circuit court ruled: In sex discrimination cases a clear disparate impact discrimination will be tested by business necessity and a clear disparate treatment discrimination will be tested by a BFOQ. The court then analyzed the issues before it in terms of disparate impact and the business necessity defense. Although the district court had also applied the business necessity defense, the circuit court differed in its application of the defense to the facts. This Comment will discuss the rule propounded in Burwell by analyzing the two theories for establishing Title VII discrimination and their respective defenses. As the discussion will show, this rule is generally adhered to by courts and has been assumed to be true by most commentators. In addition, this Comment takes the position that both the district court and the circuit court in Burwell failed to view Eastern\u27s mandatory maternity leave policy within the terms of the proper legal theory. Instead of viewing the policy as a disparate impact issue, a disparate treatment analysis should have been used. Then, following its own rule, a BFOQ would be the allowable defense in Burwell. Under the BFOQ it is likely the circuit court would not have overturned the district court\u27s holding on this issue. Finally, the district court\u27s and the circuit court\u27s applications of the business necessity defense will be examined. Both courts applied this defense but reached different results. The circuit court\u27s method differed from the district court\u27s method in two ways. The circuit court did not want to substitute a judicial judgment for business judgment in the area of risk management and passenger safety; deference was extended to Eastern\u27s business judgment. In addition, the discriminatory impact upon the flight attendants was characterized as a loss of fifteen weeks of employment. Thus, Eastern\u27s business purpose of enhancing passenger safety was found sufficiently compelling to override this impact discrimination

Idiopathic Focal Eosinophilic Enteritis (IFEE), an emerging cause of abdominal pain in horses:the effect of age, time and geographical location on risk

Background: Idiopathic focal eosinophilic enteritis (IFEE) is an emerging cause of abdominal pain (colic) in horses that frequently requires surgical intervention to prevent death. IFEE lesions were first identified in the late 1990’s and the incidence of this form of colic has continued to increase in certain equine hospital populations. The epidemiology of IFEE is poorly understood and it is difficult to diagnose pre-operatively. In addition, the aetiology of this condition and methods of possible prevention are also currently unknown. Based upon a UK equine hospital population the aims of this study were to investigate temporal and spatial heterogeneity in IFEE risk and to ascertain the effect of horse age on the risk process. Methodology/Principal Findings: A retrospective, nested case-control study was undertaken. Data were extracted and pertained to 85 observed IFEE cases and 848 randomly selected controls (non-cases) admitted to a UK equine hospital for exploratory laparotomy to investigate the cause of colic over a 10-year period. Spatial clustering was investigated via K-function analysis, and generalised additive models (GAM's) were used to quantify temporal and age effects on the odds of IFEE and to provide mapped estimates of ‘residual’ risk over the study region. The relative risk of IFEE increased over the study period (p=0.001) and a seasonal pattern was evident (p<0.01) with greatest risk of IFEE being identified between the months of July-November. Age was found to be a contributory factor (p<0.001) with IFEE risk decreasing with increasing age and younger (0 - 5 years old) horses being at greatest risk. Spatial clustering of cases was significantly different to that of controls (p<0.001) over a wide range of spatial scales (from 4km to at least 50km). The mapped surface estimate exhibited significantly atypical sub-regions (p<0.001) with increased IFEE risk in horses residing in the north-west of the study region. Conclusions/Significance: IFEE exhibits both spatial and temporal clustering and is more likely to occur in younger horses. This evidence-based information can be used by clinicians to identify horses at increased risk of IFEE; to provide clues as to the aetiology of the disease and to justify further research into environmental factors that may account for the observed spatial and temporal clustering

Identifying Molecular Features Associated with Psychoneurological Symptoms in Women with Breast Cancer Using Multivariate Mixed Models

Breast cancer (BC) is the second most common cancer among women. Research shows many women with BC experience anxiety, depression, and stress (ADS). Epigenetics has recently emerged as a potential mechanism for the development of depression.1 Although there are growing numbers of research studies indicating that epigenetic changes are associated with ADS, there is currently no evidence that this association is present in women with BC. The goal of this study was to identify high-throughput methylation sites (CpG sites) that are associated with three psychoneurological symptoms (ADS) in women with BC. Traditionally, univariate models have been used to examine the relationship between methylation sites and each psychoneurological symptom; nevertheless, ADS can be treated as a cluster of related symptoms and included together in a multivariate linear model. Hence, an overarching goal of this study is to compare and contrast univariate and multivariate models when identifying methylation sites associated with ADS in women with BC. When fitting separate linear regression models for each ADS scale, 3 among 285,173 CpG sites tested were significantly associated with depression. Two significant CpG sites are located on their respective genes FAM101A and FOXJ1, and the third site cannot be mapped to any known gene at this time. In contrast, the multivariate models identified 8,535 ADS-related CpG sites. In conclusion, when analyzing correlated psychoneurological symptom outcomes, multivariate models are more powerful and thus are recommended

Epidemiology of Colic Current Knowledge and Future Directions

Epidemiologic studies are essential for the generation of evidence-based, preventive health care strategies. This includes ways to minimize colic risk and assist informed decision making concerning diagnosis, treatment, and likely outcomes. It is important to consider that colic is not a simple "disease" but is a syndrome of abdominal pain that encompasses multiple different disease processes, and which is multifactorial in nature. This review focuses on prevention and diagnosis of colic, including specific forms of colic, communications with owners/carers concerning colic risk and management, and areas of future research

Is equine colic seasonal? Novel application of a model based approach

BACKGROUND: Colic is an important cause of mortality and morbidity in domesticated horses yet many questions about this condition remain to be answered. One such question is: does season have an effect on the occurrence of colic? Time-series analysis provides a rigorous statistical approach to this question but until now, to our knowledge, it has not been used in this context. Traditional time-series modelling approaches have limited applicability in the case of relatively rare diseases, such as specific types of equine colic. In this paper we present a modelling approach that respects the discrete nature of the count data and, using a regression model with a correlated latent variable and one with a linear trend, we explored the seasonality of specific types of colic occurring at a UK referral hospital between January 1995–December 2004. RESULTS: Six- and twelve-month cyclical patterns were identified for all colics, all medical colics, epiploic foramen entrapment (EFE), equine grass sickness (EGS), surgically treated and large colon displacement/torsion colic groups. A twelve-month cyclical pattern only was seen in the large colon impaction colic group. There was no evidence of any cyclical pattern in the pedunculated lipoma group. These results were consistent irrespective of whether we were using a model including latent correlation or trend. Problems were encountered in attempting to include both trend and latent serial dependence in models simultaneously; this is likely to be a consequence of a lack of power to separate these two effects in the presence of small counts, yet in reality the underlying physical effect is likely to be a combination of both. CONCLUSION: The use of a regression model with either an autocorrelated latent variable or a linear trend has allowed us to establish formally a seasonal component to certain types of colic presented to a UK referral hospital over a 10 year period. These patterns appeared to coincide with either times of managemental change or periods when horses are more likely to be intensively managed. Further studies are required to identify the determinants of the observed seasonality. Importantly, this type of regression model has applications beyond the study of equine colic and it may be useful in the investigation of seasonal patterns in other, relatively rare, conditions in all species

Penalized Ordinal Regression Methods for Predicting Stage of Cancer in High-Dimensional Covariate Spaces

The pathological description of the stage of a tumor is an important clinical designation and is considered, like many other forms of biomedical data, an ordinal outcome. Currently, statistical methods for predicting an ordinal outcome using clinical, demographic, and high-dimensional correlated features are lacking. In this paper, we propose a method that fits an ordinal response model to predict an ordinal outcome for high-dimensional covariate spaces. Our method penalizes some covariates (high-throughput genomic features) without penalizing others (such as demographic and/or clinical covariates). We demonstrate the application of our method to predict the stage of breast cancer. In our model, breast cancer subtype is a nonpenalized predictor, and CpG site methylation values from the Illumina Human Methylation 450K assay are penalized predictors. The method has been made available in the ordinalgmifs package in the R programming environment

Meal Timing Regulates the Human Circadian System

Circadian rhythms, metabolism and nutrition are intimately linked [1, 2], although effects of meal timing on the human circadian system are poorly understood. We investigated the effect of a 5-hour delay in meals on markers of the human master clock and multiple peripheral circadian rhythms. Ten healthy young men undertook a 13-day laboratory protocol. Three meals (breakfast, lunch, dinner) were given at 5-hour intervals, beginning either 0.5 (early) or 5.5 (late) hours after wake. Participants were acclimated to early meals and then switched to late meals for 6 days. After each meal schedule, participants' circadian rhythms were measured in a 37-hour constant routine that removes sleep and environmental rhythms while replacing meals with hourly isocaloric snacks. Meal timing did not alter actigraphic sleep parameters before circadian rhythm measurement. In constant routines, meal timing did not affect rhythms of subjective hunger and sleepiness, master clock markers (plasma melatonin and cortisol), plasma triglycerides, or clock gene expression in whole blood. Following late meals, however, plasma glucose rhythms were delayed by 5.69 ± 1.29 hours (p < 0.001) and average glucose concentration decreased by 0.27 ± 0.05 mM (p < 0.001). In adipose tissue, PER2 mRNA rhythms were delayed by 0.97 ± 0.29 hours (p < 0.01), indicating that human molecular clocks may be regulated by feeding time and could underpin plasma glucose changes. Timed meals therefore play a role in synchronising peripheral circadian rhythms in humans, and may have particular relevance for patients with circadian rhythm disorders, shift workers, and transmeridian travellers

Epigenetic Alterations and an Increased Frequency of Micronuclei in Women with Fibromyalgia

Fibromyalgia (FM), characterized by chronic widespread pain, fatigue, and cognitive/mood disturbances, leads to reduced workplace productivity and increased healthcare expenses. To determine if acquired epigenetic/genetic changes are associated with FM, we compared the frequency of spontaneously occurring micronuclei (MN) and genome-wide methylation patterns in women with FM () to those seen in comparably aged healthy controls ( (MN); (methylation)). The mean (sd) MN frequency of women with FM (51.4 (21.9)) was significantly higher than that of controls (15.8 (8.5)) (; df = 1; ). Significant differences ( sites) in methylation patterns were observed between cases and controls considering a 5% false discovery rate. The majority of differentially methylated (DM) sites (91%) were attributable to increased values in the women with FM. The DM sites included significant biological clusters involved in neuron differentiation/nervous system development, skeletal/organ system development, and chromatin compaction. Genes associated with DM sites whose function has particular relevance to FM included BDNF, NAT15, HDAC4, PRKCA, RTN1, and PRKG1. Results support the need for future research to further examine the potential role of epigenetic and acquired chromosomal alterations as a possible biological mechanism underlying FM