Palmer v. Shultz

Alison Palmer (plaintiff) was a female United States Foreign Service employee. On her behalf and on behalf of a class of female employees of the Foreign Service, Palmer filed suit against George Shultz, the secretary of state (defendant), alleging that sex discrimination had occurred in seven different types of Foreign Service personnel actions, including job assignment, selection for higher assignments, awarding of honors, and employee evaluation. Regarding each of the seven practices, Palmer offered statistical data that showed a disparity of treatment between men and women, with accompanying statistical analysis demonstrating the low likelihood of such distinctions arising from chance. The issues before the court rapidly settled on the extent of standard deviation necessary to infer discrimination. Although the Supreme Court had been somewhat vague in indicating that a disparity greater than two or three standard deviations would be suspect, that indication had not established any threshold. Prior caselaw in this specific jurisdiction had held that the .05 level of statistical significance was sufficient to support an inference of discrimination. That .05 level could translate to either 1.65 standard deviations in a one-tailed test or 1.96 deviations in a two-tailed test, with the difference in the two levels being that a one-tailed test considers only one isolated variable for randomness, whereas the two-tailed test considers each variable for randomness (both men and women, in this case). The trial court found for the Foreign Service, and Palmer appealed.