Nothing 'Flawed' About These Court Victories

The May 29 editorial "Flawed Victory," which characterized as "deeply flawed" the recent Supreme Court decisions reaffirming protection against retaliation for age and racial discrimination, ignored language covering federal employees enacted in 1974 that broadly prohibits "any discrimination based on age."

For more than 30 years, this language had been universally interpreted -- by courts as well as by the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission -- to encompass discrimination in response to the filing of an age-related complaint.

The National Treasury Employees Union filed a friend-of-the-court brief in Gomez-Perez v. Potter, the case involving an age discrimination claim by a federal employee. As we pointed out in our brief, and as the court majority recognized, there are compelling reasons to interpret the broadly phrased provisions applicable to federal employees in the same manner as the specific prohibitions applicable to private-sector employees.

Our brief also pointed out the error behind Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr.'s reliance on the alleged availability of other remedies for retaliation. There are significant gaps in the civil service protections against retaliation, gaps that this decision will close.

If this decision had gone the other way, tens of thousands of federal employees would have been left entirely unprotected from retaliation arising from age discrimination complaints. Without protection from retaliation, the statutory ban on age-based discrimination would be gutted for those federal employees.

COLLEEN M. KELLEY

National President

National Treasury Employees Union

Washington