Where Title VII Does Not Reach

Apropos of our recent class discussion of "who's an employer": Check out this story from Salon, which discusses how federal equal employment opportunity laws are inapplicable to claims of sexual harassment and abuse of employees at a casino owned (but not operated) by a small California-based Indian nation.

A couple of quotes from Taking on a Nation, by Peter Byrne:

The [EEOC] gave them the right to sue, but also told them it had no jurisdiction to investigate their claims themselves, because the casino is on Indian land, which is sovereign territory. Regina Brown, speaking for the [California] state agency, says pretty much the same thing . . . .

[Attorney for the plaintiffs] Debra Smith . . . explained why the Thunder Valley lawsuit should be allowed to proceed. The court had jurisdiction, said Smith, becuase the tribe had failed to protect the women's civil rights. She argued that the tribe's sovereign immunity from lawsuits was trumped by the equal rights provided to all people by the constitutions of California and the United States. She said that the state never intended for tribes to be able to use the tool of sovereignty to take away the civil rights of others. She said it was especially wrong to let a tribe's business partners hide behind Indian sovereignty.**

Ruling against Smith, [the judge] threw the case out of court. "It's a question of law," she said, without elaborating.

**NOTE: Though the United Auburn Indian Community owns the casino, it was financed and is operated by Station Casinos of Las Vegas.