In Wal-Mart Case, High Court Ignores Women, Evidence

The Supreme Court’s Wal-Mart ruling doesn’t just set the legal precedent that some companies are too big to sue. The court’s five conservatives—and all but one of its men—also declared that “sex discrimination is simply too pervasive to be a problem,” writes Dahlia Lithwick of Slate. Antonin Scalia’s faction said that Wal-Mart’s female employees couldn’t sue en-masse because the company left its hiring and personnel practices up to regional managers.

“It's not Wal-Mart discriminating against women. It's just all these men doing it,” Lithwick summarizes. Scalia pointed triumphantly to the company’s official anti-discrimination policy, and scoffed at attempts to demonstrate bias with “statistical and anecdotal evidence.” Never mind that the point of this kind of case is to reveal unspoken biases and policies. To this court “the only discrimination that can ever be remedied is the kind that comes right at you with a big blue sign and a greeter.” (More Dahlia Lithwick stories.)