[Congressional Record Volume 154, Number 11 (Thursday, January 24, 2008)]
[Senate]
[Pages S286-S287]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]

      By Mr. KENNEDY (for himself, Mr. Leahy, Mr. Dodd, Mr. Bingaman, 
        Mr. Kerry, Mr. Harkin, Ms. Mikulski, Mr. Akaka, Mrs. Boxer, Mr. 
        Feingold, Mrs. Murray, Mr. Durbin, Mr. Schumer, Ms. Cantwell, 
        Mrs. Clinton,  Mr. Lautenberg, Mr. Obama, Mr. Menendez, Mr. 
        Cardin, and Mr. Brown):
  S. 2554. A bill to restore, reaffirm, and reconcile legal rights and 
remedies under civil rights statutes; to the Committee on Health, 
Education, Labor, and Pensions.
  Mr. KENNEDY. Mr. President, I am honored to join my colleagues 
Senators Leahy, Dodd, Bingaman, Kerry, Harkin, Mikulski, Akaka, Boxer, 
Feingold, Murray, Durbin, Schumer, Cantwell, Clinton, Lautenberg, 
Obama, Menendez, Cardin, and Brown in introducing the Civil Rights Act 
of 2008. This legislation is vital to realizing the full promise of our 
civil rights laws and labor laws to protect all of America's people.
  Civil rights is still the unfinished business of America. Prejudice, 
discrimination, and outright bigotry continue to limit the lives of 
large numbers of our people. Unfortunately, in recent years, the 
Supreme Court has rolled back some of the core statutory protections 
for civil rights and workers' rights. The Civil Rights Act of 2008 will 
strengthen existing civil rights protections and restore the bedrock 
principle that individuals may challenge all forms of discrimination in 
public services.
  It has long been clear that effective enforcement of civil rights and 
fair labor practices is possible only if individuals themselves are 
able to seek relief in court. Our legislation will strengthen existing 
protections in cases where the courts have let us down by narrowing 
individuals' right to demand accountability for discrimination.
  Key elements of our proposals will make it easier for working women 
to enforce their right to equal pay for equal work. Our bill enhances 
protections against discrimination in federally funded services, and 
enacts needed safeguards for students who are harassed because of their 
national origin, gender, race, or disability.
  We make sure that victims of discrimination and unfair labor 
practices can receive meaningful damages where appropriate. Our 
legislation will also enable members of our Armed Forces to enforce 
their Federal right to be free from discrimination by States because of 
their military status.
  In addition, our legislation will ensure that older workers who 
suffer age discrimination are not denied the chance to seek relief 
because they work for a State government. It will also prevent 
employers from requiring workers to sign away their right to bring 
discrimination claims and fair labor claims in court, in order to 
obtain a job or keep a job.
  This bill is a needed step in restoring the effective remedies that 
our civil rights laws and fair labor laws must have in order to ensure 
accountability for discrimination. America will never be America until 
we do.
  Mr. LEAHY. Mr. President, our great Nation was founded on the 
fundamental principle that all persons are created equal. We have long 
committed, and recommitted, ourselves to ensuring that all persons have 
the

[[Page S287]]

right to prosper through hard work and ingenuity. However, for many 
Americans, those rights still remain illusory. Today, we introduce a 
comprehensive bill to vindicate our founding principles and make the 
promise of equal opportunity in the workplace a reality for all 
Americans.
  I am proud to cosponsor the Civil Rights Act of 2008, and I thank 
Senator Ted Kennedy for his leadership in the Senate on this issue, and 
Representative John Lewis for his leadership in the House. I have been 
a long-time supporter of efforts to rid the workplace of unlawful 
discrimination, and I believe the Civil Rights Act of 2008 is critical 
to achieving that important goal. We must continue to fight to end all 
workplace discrimination, including discrimination based on sexual 
orientation.
  This legislation we are introducing today responds to several 
disappointing decisions by conservative courts. These court rulings 
have misconstrued congressional intent, and have had the effect of 
limiting important civil rights protections provided by Congress.
  A 2000 decision from the Supreme Court of the United States greatly 
restricted the capacity of workers who suffer age discrimination to sue 
for full relief. In Kimel v. Florida Board of Regents, the Supreme 
Court ruled that, contrary to Congress's original intent, State 
employers do not have to provide back pay or other monetary damages 
when workers are discriminated against based on age. As a result, 
millions of State workers who are 40 or over lost the right to back 
pay. This bill would restore Congress's original intent that State 
employers give workers full relief for age discrimination, including 
back pay.
  The bill would clarify the standard for challenging employment 
practices that have an unjustified discriminatory impact on older 
workers. It would make clear that the standard of proof in cases 
alleging a disparate impact based on age is the same as in cases 
alleging a disparate impact based on race, color, gender, national 
origin, or religion.
  The bill would also restore the rights of victims of discrimination--
in the workplace or otherwise--to challenge practices that have a 
disparate impact on certain communities based on race, national origin, 
sex, age, or disability. Since the Supreme Court's decision 7 years ago 
in Alexander v. Sandoval, individuals can no longer challenge 
discrimination by entities that receive Federal funding without facing 
the high burden of proving purposeful discrimination.
  Currently, only the Federal Government has the right to challenge 
sophisticated forms of discrimination--by federally funded entities--
that fall disproportionately on certain minority groups. So if a State 
decided to administer a driver's license exam only in English, rather 
than administering the exam in multiple languages, a non-English 
speaker would be denied his or her right to have their day in court. 
This measure returns the Federal law to our original intentions by 
allowing individuals a right to challenge such practices:
  These added protections provide a significant step forward in the 
fulfillment of our goal to eliminate the footprint of unlawful 
discrimination from the workplace and broader society. Civil rights 
legislation over the last 44 years--including antidiscrimination in the 
workplace laws--represents some of Congress's greatest achievements. 
With the passage of the Civil Rights Acts of 1964 and 1991, the Age 
Discrimination Act of 1975, and the Rehabilitation Act of 1973, 
Congress gave victims of discrimination a way to address the wrongs 
that they have suffered and put teeth into the sanctions faced by those 
who unlawfully discriminate against their victims.
  Despite these gains, efforts to eliminate bias from the workplace and 
larger society have been largely eroded by decisions from conservative 
jurists on the Supreme Court and other Federal courts. Year after year, 
conservative courts have rolled back rights by denying certain types of 
relief and taking certain tools--designed to fight intentional and 
sophisticated forms of workplace discrimination--from individual 
workers. This bill would reverse that rollback, and restore the rights 
of victims to have their day in court and to have meaningful remedies 
when those rights are violated.
  Discrimination on the basis of certain personal characteristics has 
no place in any workplace or in any State in America. It is long 
overdue for Congress to reinforce Americans' protections against bias 
in the workplace and eradicate barriers to full and equal participation 
in our society.
  The time for this bill is now. It is particularly important that, on 
the week our Nation observes and honors the legacy of Dr. Martin Luther 
King, Jr., Congress has introduced this bill. We must remain vigilant 
in ensuring our precious civil rights, which generations of Americans 
fought and bled to protect, remain available for our children and 
grandchildren.
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