A gender gap emerged at the U.S. Supreme Court as the court’s three female justices tussled with their male colleagues over a nationwide discrimination suit against Wal-Mart Stores Inc. (WMT)
Justices Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Sonia Sotomayor and Elena Kagan all voiced at least qualified support yesterday for the class-action suit, which claims women across the country were victimized by Wal-Mart’s practice of letting local managers make subjective decisions about pay and promotions. The dispute marks the first gender-bias case the court has considered with three women on the bench.
The three took the lead in questioning Wal-Mart’s attorney, Theodore Boutrous. Ginsburg spoke about how corporate decision- makers tend to hire people like themselves, while Sotomayor endorsed the use of statistical analysis in discrimination cases. Kagan balked when Boutrous said the workers’ case was based on an “incoherent theory.” More.