Workplace discrimination and retaliation
Barnett-Morgan v. Inverness Technologies
In brief
- Where it stands
- Dismissed
Petition denied.
- What it’s about
- Renete Barnett-Morgan’s petition says Inverness Technologies removed her from a supervisory role without changing her pay, title, or benefits, and that her filings with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission described retaliation despite an unchecked box on the charge form.
- Who it affects
- Barnett-Morgan’s request for Supreme Court review is over, but the Court did not decide whether her claims meet Title VII’s requirements.
Summary: written with AI from the case record.
What it's about
It also asks whether courts must use the McDonnell Douglas framework, a test for assessing discrimination claims, when deciding her Title VII job-discrimination claims.
Barnett-Morgan’s petition says her submissions to the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission described retaliation, even though she left the form’s retaliation box unchecked.
The petition raised questions about what counts as a harmful job change, how courts assess discrimination claims, and whether the EEOC paperwork adequately reported retaliation under Title VII, the federal job-discrimination law.
Question presented
1. Whether the involuntary removal of an employee from a supervisory role — stripping her of authority to set schedules, to monitor co-workers, and to initiate discipline — is an adverse employment action under Title VII when her compensation, formal title, and benefits are unchanged? 2. Whether the McDonnell Douglas burden-shifting framework governs the summary disposition of Title VII disparate-treatment claims — the question this Court assumed without deciding in Ames and that two Justices have twice urged the Court to answer? 3. Whether a Title VII retaliation claim is administratively exhausted where the charging party’s EEOC submissions, of which the employer was on notice, describe retaliation, but omits to check the preprinted “retaliation” box on the EEOC-prepared charge form?
Documents
Docket activity
New analysis added
AI analysis generated: Case Briefing
AI analysis generated: Decision Record
New analysis added
Case data updated: summary, question_presented, generation_metadata
Show 2 moreShow fewer
Case data updated: question_presented, extraction_metadata
Brief added: Petition
More questions
- Did the denial mean the Supreme Court agreed with the Sixth Circuit?
- No. Refusing to hear the case does not endorse the Sixth Circuit’s reasoning.
Sources
Primary materials plus reporting. Best-effort analysis: this explainer relies on a mix of primary materials and trusted secondary sources. Official filings and opinions remain authoritative.