Opinion ID: 1302107
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Membership in A Protected Class

Text: Holcomb alleges that he was discriminated against, not solely because of his own race, but as a result of his marriage to a black woman. This Court has never ruled on the question of whether Title VII applies in these circumstances. We resolve that question today, and hold that an employer may violate Title VII if it takes action against an employee because of the employee's association with a person of another race. One of the first cases to address the question, Ripp v. Dobbs Houses, Inc., 366 F.Supp. 205, 208-09 (N.D.Ala.1973), reached the opposite conclusion. There, a white employee claimed that he was discharged because of his association with black employees. The court decided the plaintiffs claim was not cognizable under the statute. It relied for this conclusion on the text of Title VII itself, which prohibits discriminatory action against an individual because of such individual's race.  42 U.S.C. § 2000e-2(a) (emphasis added). On this view, Title VII does not help those who suffer adverse employment action as a result of association with persons of another race. See also Adams v. Governor's Comm. on Postsecondary Educ, No. C80-624A, 1981 WL 27101, at , 1981 U.S. Dist. Lexis 15346 at -9 (N.D.Ga. Sept.3, 1981) (rejecting a claim by a white man married to a black woman, because [n]either the language of the statute nor its legislative history supports a cause of action for discrimination against a person because of his relationship to persons of another race.). We reject this restrictive reading of Title VII. The reason is simple: where an employee is subjected to adverse action because an employer disapproves of interracial association, the employee suffers discrimination because of the employee's own race. All the district judges in this circuit to consider the question, including the district court in this case, have reached that conclusion. Holcomb, 2006 WL 1982764 at ; Rosenblatt v. Bivona & Cohen, P.C, 946 F.Supp. 298, 300 (S.D.N.Y.1996) (Plaintiff has alleged discrimination as a result of his marriage to a black woman. Had he been black, his marriage would not have been interracial. Therefore, inherent in his complaint is the assertion that he has suffered racial discrimination based on his own race.); Whitney v. Greater N.Y. Corp. of Seventh-Day Adventists, 401 F.Supp. 1363, 1366 (S.D.N.Y.1975). The Fifth, Sixth, and Eleventh Circuits agree; Deffenbaugh-Williams v. Wal-Mart Stores, Inc., 156 F.3d 581, 589 (5th Cir.1998), vacated in part on other grounds by Williams v. Wal-Mart Stores, Inc., 182 F.3d 333 (5th Cir.1999) (Title VII prohibits discrimination in employment premised on an interracial relationship.); Tetro v. Elliott Popham Pontiac, Oldsmobile, Buick & GMC Trucks, Inc., 173 F.3d 988, 994-95 (6th Cir.1999) (holding Title VII applicable to allegation that employee suffered discrimination because he had a biracial daughter); Parr v. Woodmen of the World Life Ins. Co., 791 F.2d 888, 892 (11th Cir.1986) (Where a plaintiff claims discrimination based upon an interracial marriage or association, he alleges, by definition, that he has been discriminated against because of his race.). Accordingly, we find that Holcomb, in claiming that he suffered an adverse employment action because of his interracial marriage, has alleged discrimination as a result of his membership in a protected class under Title VII.