United States: Supreme Court Holds ADEA Does Not Prohibit Reverse Age Discrimination

The Age Discrimination in Employment Act of 1967 ("ADEA") protects workers age 40 and over from age-based employment discrimination. The ADEA clearly prohibits the discriminatory preference of younger workers over older workers, but on February 24, 2004, the United States Supreme Court in General Dynamics Land Systems, Inc. v. Cline ruled that the ADEA does not prohibit employers from preferring older workers over younger workers in the protected age group. In essence, this ruling means that younger employees protected by the ADEA cannot challenge employee benefits or employment actions that favor older employees.

The Cline case arose out of a collective bargaining agreement between the United Auto Workers and an employer, General Dynamics Land Systems. The agreement eliminated the obligation of General Dynamics to provide retiree health benefits to employees, except those employees who were at least 50 years old on July 1, 1997. Approximately 200 employees who were at least 40 years old, but who would not be entitled to retiree health benefits under the new collective bargaining agreement, sued the employer, claiming that their exclusion from benefit eligibility was based on their age and therefore violated the ADEA. After a federal trial court and appellate court reached differing conclusions as to whether the claim was actionable under the ADEA, the case proceeded to the Supreme Court.

In a 6-3 decision, a majority of the Supreme Court held that the ADEA does not prohibit favoring older workers over younger workers, thus precluding the Cline plaintiffs’ suit from going forward. The Supreme Court concluded that the ADEA’s text, structure, purpose, history, and relationship to other federal statutes show that Congress did not mean to prohibit an employer from favoring an older worker over a younger worker. Instead, the Supreme Court stated that Congress meant "to protect a relatively older worker from discrimination that works to the advantage of the relatively young."

In holding that the ADEA does not protect younger workers against age-based employment actions that favor older workers, the Supreme Court departed from the broader approach it has taken in interpreting other federal employment discrimination laws. Prior to Cline, the Supreme Court had interpreted certain other antidiscrimination statutes to include protections against "reverse discrimination" – that is, discrimination against the historically favored class. For example, in 1976 the Supreme Court held that Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 protects whites against race discrimination, and in 1998 the Court held that Title VII’s prohibition of discrimination because of sex protects men from sexual harassment by other men.

The Cline decision appears to eliminate the prospect of "reverse age discrimination" lawsuits from relatively younger employees, e.g., employees in their 40s or 50s, when certain benefits, including retirement packages, are offered only to relatively older workers, e.g., workers in their 60s. Further, the decision appears to allow employers to choose an older applicant over a younger applicant on the basis of age. Thus, if two individuals, one age 45 and one age 55, apply for the same job, the employer would not violate the ADEA by choosing the 55-year-old because he is older.

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