Court Says Rights Law Doesn’t Protect U.S. Workers Abroad
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The Supreme Court ruled today that the Federal law barring discrimination in employment does not apply to Americans overseas. The 6-to-3 decision upheld a ruling by a Federal appeals court and rejected arguments by the Bush Administration that the Civil Rights Act of 1964 should be interpreted to protect American workers abroad from discrimination by United States-based employers. Unless Congress amends the Civil Rights Act, which it is free to do under today’s ruling, the decision leaves hundreds of thousands of Americans now employed by American companies overseas without Federal protection against discrimination on the basis of race, religion or sex. The Administration had appealed a 1990 ruling by the United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit, in New Orleans, which dismissed a discrimination suit brought against the Arabian American Oil Company by an American engineer born in Lebanon. The engineer, Ali Boureslan, a naturalized American citizen, worked in Saudi Arabia for Arabian American, which was incorporated in Delaware. It is now Aramco. Mr. Boureslan charged that his dismissal in 1984 was a result of discrimination on the basis of his ethnic origin and Muslim religion. He said his supervisor had ridiculed him because of his heritage and refused to let him take time off on Muslim holidays. Rehnquist Writes Decision The appeals court, upholding a ruling by a Federal district judge in Houston, dismissed the suit on the ground that the Civil Rights Act did not apply beyond the country’s borders. Writing for the Supreme Court today, Chief Justice William H. Rehnquist said that while Congress had the authority to extend the reach of Federal law beyond the country’s borders, it had not done so in the 1964 Civil Rights Act with the required specificity. The Chief Justice said it was “a longstanding principle of American law” that Federal laws would be presumed to apply only within the country unless Congress explicitly provided otherwise. He said that the evidence of Congressional intent presented by the Administration and Mr. Boureslan, “while not totally lacking in probative value, falls short of demonstrating the affirmative Congressional intent required to extend the protections of Title VII beyond our territorial borders.” Title VII is the specific provision that bars employment discrimination on the basis of race, religion or sex. Souter in the Majority More : query.nytimes.com |