Big Town Hospital
A group of nurses at Big Town Hospital filed a complaint, charging the hospital with discrimination, and alleged that the hospital had failed to implement changes that were recommended by an outside consultant the hospital hired to make sure that the hospital was complying with applicable employment laws. The outside consultant stated that nursing positions were female-dominated jobs and recommended that job classifications related to nursing positions and compensation in those job classifications be modified so that they were more in line with other positions in the hospital that were not dominated by one gender or the other.
The hospital maintains that because nursing positions are generally filed by females, there can be no discrimination of equal pay issue with regard to those positions. Who is right, the nurses who contend that there is sex discrimination and violation of equal pay laws, or the hospital that contends that only males who fill nursing positions can have a claim for sex discrimination and equal pay law violations?