Supreme Bias?

The U.S. Supreme Court ended its 2010–11 term last week by again ruling largely in favor of corporate interests by limiting plaintiffs’ rights to organize as groups, raising concerns that the court has a bias toward business at the expense of everyday Americans. According to one statistic, under Chief Justice John Roberts, the court has sided with the U.S. Chamber of Commerce’s position on business cases 65 percent of the time, more than it did under any previous chief justice. This gives corporations a great deal of power at the expense of individual Americans.

Two key cases put new restrictions on an individual’s rights to challenge corporate interests. In Wal-Mart v. Dukes, the court ignored more than 40 years of established jurisprudence and severely restricted the ability of workers to fight discrimination together in a class action. The court’s extremely conservative decision gave great weight to the mere presence of a corporate anti-discrimination policy, even though it seems that the Wal-Mart policy was routinely not followed. This decision appears to give a red light for future employee class-action cases and a green light for employers to continue to use highly subjective pay and sex discrimination practices.

In the second case, AT&T Mobility v. Concepcion, the court found that businesses can effectively shield themselves from consumer class-action suits by including a clause in contracts stating that all claims must be resolved through individual arbitrations. This weakens consumers’ ability to work together to fight incorrect billings and corporate mistakes through class action.

Taken together, the Wal-Mart and AT&T cases hollow out the rights of Americans to collectively challenge corporations for their treatment of employees and customers, and the decisions further illustrate the trend of the court’s bias toward business.

AAUW will continue to monitor the Supreme Court and the impact of its decisions. AAUW firmly supports a fair, balanced, and independent judiciary because so many of our fundamental rights and liberties have been established and are protected by the federal courts and Supreme Court precedents. To learn more about AAUW’s work on this issue, please visit our position page.