Pregnancy Discrimination and the American Worker

This book explores how the federal courts have addressed the two primary federal statutory protections found in the Pregnancy Discrimination Act and the Americans with Disabilities Act and how law mediates conflict between workplace expectations and the realities of pregnancy. While pregnancy discrimination has been litigated under both, these laws establish different forms of equality. Formal equality requires equal treatment of pregnant women in the workplace, and substantive equality requires the worker's needs to be accommodated by the employer. Drawing from a unique database of 1,112 cases, Deardorff and Dahl discuss how courts have addressed pregnancy through these two different approaches to equality. The authors explore the implications for gender equality and the evolution of how pregnancy and pregnancy-related conditions in employment can be addressed by employers.

Michelle D. Deardorff is Professor and Department Head of Political Science and Public Service at the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga, USA. She has coauthored a two-volume constitutional law set, Constitutional Law in Contemporary America (2010), and is on the author team of American Democracy Now, fourth edition (2012).

James G. Dahl is Associate Dean in the Office of Undergraduate Affairs, College of Business at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, USA. He had previously spent 22 years at Millikin University, USA; where he served on the faculty in various administrative roles and Dean of the Tabor School of Business.