Contesting Workplace Discrimination in Court - American Bar ...

Part 4 | Plaintiff CharacteristicsForty-fourpercentof all EDLplaintiffs areAfrican American,while 33 percentare white.This section explores the distribution of three primary plaintiff characteristics in EDL cases: race, sex, and occupation.We first examine plaintiff characteristics across all cases; Next, we explore the distribution of such characteristics within thefour most common types of alleged discrimination: race, sex, age, and disability. Figures 4.1 through 4.3 present, respectively,the overall racial, sex, and occupational characteristics of plaintiffs as a percent of all EDL cases. Forty-four percent of all EDLplaintiffs are African American, while 33 percent are white. All remaining racial categories make up the additional 23 percentof cases.* As for sex demographics, we found essentially equal numbers of male and female plaintiffs (with a very slight edge forwomen, 51 to 49 percent). As for occupation, the largest plurality of cases (48.5 percent) are filed by plaintiffs who work in sales,service, or administration, followed by those in managerial or professional occupations (32.5 percent). The smallest percentage ofEDL cases (19 percent) come from blue collar and/or workers in other occupations.figure 4.1 :race of plaintiffs by percent(n=1534)* We could determine the race of the plaintiff in 1,534 of the 1,788 cases. This analysis excludes the “race unknown” category.-19-