Eighth Circuit: Police Officer Trainee not Limited to Title VII for Bringing Discrimination Claim

In Hensley v. Sgt. Bill Brown et al., No. 11-2561, (8th Cir. July 25, 2012), a police-officer trainee claimed that while in the police academy, she was repeatedly subjected to sexually harassing comments, discriminatory actions, and physical assault by her male trainers. The trainers subsequently issued a memorandum which indicated that she would not be graduating from the academy. She then left the academy and was unable to become a police officer.  

She then sued the city board of police commissioners and various individual officers claiming that she had been discriminated against in violation of Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, as amended, and for violations of the Fourth and Fourteenth Amendments to the U.S. Constitution. Issues arose with respect to whether she exhausted her administrative remedies under Title VII and whether she was limited to seeking redress for these grievances under Title VII only .

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit reasoned that Title VII provides the exclusive remedy for violations of its own terms and an employee seeking relief under this provision must comply with the act’s procedural requirements. Further, though an employee may not invoke a purely remedial statute (such as 42 U.S.C. § 1983) to redress a right conferred only by Title VII, where an employer’s conduct violates Title VII as well as rights conferred by an independent source, “Title VII supplements, rather than supplants, existing remedies for employment discrimination.”

Thus, the Eighth Circuit found that although Title VII provided the exclusive remedy for the trainee’s discrimination claims, its exclusivity ceased when the employer’s conduct also amounted to a violation of a constitutional right. So, where the employee asserted a violation of a constitutional right, she could sue under Section 1983 alone without having to plead a Title VII violation and comply with the act’s procedural requirements.

There exists a host of federal and state law providing bases for employees to make claims of discrimination. For that reason, it is important for employers to be aware of the employment and civil rights laws in their jurisdiction to ensure compliance with all applicable law.