Most folks understand that an employer musn’t discriminate against the employees because of, among other things, the employee’s race or sex. Clearly black people are protected from such discrimination. Likewise, women are protected.

The law though clouds that fact that employees have both a racial identity and a gender identity, and that many of them, black women in particular, may well face discrimination based on the fact that they are both black and women.

A black woman can be subjected to employment discrimination because she is black, because she is a woman. How about because she is a black woman. Indeed, this is very likely to occur, as membership in two protected classes places black women in a most disfavored employment position.

Take one early case which addressed discrimination against black woman for instance. The facts showed that the employer employed 346 people: 310 were white men and women, and 36 were black men. (Lea v. Cone Mills Corp., 301 F. Supp. 97, 2 Fair Empl. Prac. Cas. 12 (M.D. N.C. 1969).

Believe it or not, the personnel manager told applicants that the company simply "did not employ Negro females." The personnel manager added at trial that the company had never hired any black women. Essentially, the pattern created was that white men and white women were hired for desirable jobs, black men were hired for low-paying jobs, and black women were simply not hired at all.

Based on this reasoning, black women should be affected by both race discrimination and sex discrimination. As a result, they end up in a worse employment situation than either white women or black men. The statistics of one large employer bear this out.

After studying the wages of state employees for New York State, it was found that the wages of white women and of black and Latino men and women in jobs made up largely of people from these groups, were systematically depressed. The study further showed that the wages for black and Latino women were depressed further than those of either black and Latino men, or white women.

Year after year, these black and Latino women were being underpaid by approximately 14% of their salary due to discrimination based on what can only be race and sex.

Our attorneys understand that a client who is a black woman could face race discrimination, sex discrimination, or a combination of both. An attorney who sees these subtleties will better understand his clients' interests, and should be better able to protect those interests.