Supreme Court narrows public employees' legal options

THE COURTHOUSE DOOR MAY NOT be locked and bolted, but it is certainly slamming shut. That is the reaction of law professors and other interpreters of a U.S. Supreme Court ruling in June that scaled back the rights of state employees, including faculty members at public university campuses, to pursue claims under federal law for damages against states.

The ruling in Alden v. Maine, viewed as a test of the court's views of sovereign immunity, came in a case brought by probation officers in Maine, who claimed that the state had violated the federal Fair Labor Standards Act by failing to give them overtime pay. In a five-to-four opinion with far-reaching implications for other state employees, the court ruled that the officers do not have the right to seek damages under the federal law by suing the state in state court.

"It is the essence of our liberty that where there is a right, there is a remedy," Jonathan R. Siegel, a law professor at George Washington University, told the Washington Post. "If you take away [the remedy], there is a dire threat to the realization of people's rights."

Such comments from observers echo those issued from the bench by Justice David Souter, who called the ruling "unrealistic" and "indefensible" and held out hope it would soon be overturned. Justice John Paul Stevens also denounced the ruling, comparing the five-justice majority to "a mindless dragon that indiscriminately chews gaping holes in Federal statutes."

The court had earlier closed off the ability of state employees to pursue federal claims in federal court. Thus, the June ruling effectively left administrative agencies-such as the U.S. Departments of Education and Labor, which are often understaffed and ill equipped to manage large caseloads-as the only channels left for state employees to seek recourse under many federal laws.

AAUP counsel Jonathan Alger says that the Supreme Court's broad ruling on sovereign immunity may curtail the right of faculty members at public institutions to contest alleged violations of federal rights through court action. Alger hastens to add, however, that the decision does not prevent state employees from pursuing private lawsuits on civil-rights issues.

Still, Alger warns, the Supreme Court has now agreed to review whether this same sovereign-immunity defense could be used to block age-discrimination claims under federal law. In October, the Court is set to hear Kimel v. Florida Board of Regents, which consists of three separate cases consolidated into one so that the Court need issue only one ruling.

Says Alger, "The Supreme Court's recent pronouncement on sovereign immunity suggests a pattern that could leave professors at public institutions with far fewer options under federal law than their private-sector counterparts enjoy."

Copyright American Association of University Professors Sep/Oct 1999
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