does anyone know where i can find the case Wilson v. Southwest Airlines Co. 517 F. Supp. 292 (N.D. Texas 1981) Action was filed challenging airline's open refusal to hire males as a violation of Title VII of the Civil Rights Act. The District Court, Patrick E. Higginbotham, J., held that where being a female was not qualification required to perform successfully jobs of flight attendant and ticket agent with airline, functions served by employee sexuality in airline's operations were not dominant ones, and fact that marketing campaign focusing on sex appeal of attendants and ticket agents was necessary to distinguish airline in its early years did not lead to conclusion that sex discrimination was then, or was now, of business necessity, sex was not a bona fide occupational qualification for jobs of flight attendant or ticket agent with airline.Ordered accordingly.Conclusion.In rejecting Southwest's BFOQ defense, this court follows Justice Marshall's admonition that the BFOQ exception should not be permitted to “swallow the rule.” See Phillips v. Martin Marietta Corp., 400 U.S. 542, 545, 91 S.Ct. 496, 498, 27 L.Ed.2d 613 (1971) (Marshall, J. concurring). Southwest's position knows no principled limit. Recognition of a sex BFOQ for Southwest's public contact personnel based on the airline's “love” campaign opens the door for other employers freely to discriminate by tacking on sex or sex appeal as a qualification for any public contact position where customers preferred employees of a particular sex.[FN29] In order not to undermine Congress' purpose to prevent employers from “refusing to hire an individual based on stereotyped characterizations of the sexes,” see Phillips v. Martin Marietta Corp., supra, 400 U.S. at 545, 97 S.Ct. at 498, a BFOQ for sex must be denied where sex is merely useful for attracting customers of the opposite sex, but where hiring both sexes will not alter or undermine the essential function of the employer's business. Rejecting a wider BFOQ for sex does not eliminate the commercial exploitation of sex appeal. It only requires, consistent with the purposes of Title VII, that employer's exploit the attractiveness and allure of a sexually integrated workforce. Neither Southwest, nor the traveling public, will suffer from such a rule. More to the point, it is my judgment that this is what Congress intended. |