Professor Suja Thomas recently spoke with News Bureau business and law editor Phil Ciciora about why judges tend to dismiss employment harassment cases.

Your book argues that federal judges play a role in allowing sexual and racial harassment to persist in the workplace. How is that?

"Judges can dismiss sexual or racial harassment cases for seemingly no good reason through a procedure called summary judgment, which allows a judge to unilaterally decide what a “reasonable jury” might decide. After a plaintiff files an employment discrimination case and information has been exchanged between the parties in the case, if a judge thinks that a reasonable jury could not find for the plaintiff, then they can dismiss the case on summary judgment. Consequently, a jury never hears the case."

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