Horizontal Jurisprudence and Sex Discrimination

In this Article, Professor Bums contrasts the vertical jurisprudential style of Title VII with the horizontal approaches found in other, unrelated areas of the law. She argues that Title VII's vertical, top-down development and testing are largely responsible for the law's failure to produce more concrete results or to settle the often acrimonious arguments on the subject of gender equality in the workplace. She advocates supplementing Title VII's onesize- fits-all set of rules with a bottom-up, horizontal approach to rulemaking and rule testing. This will allow those directly affected by the rules to participate in their development and encourage different employers and employees to experiment with different plans tailored to meet their specific needs.

While some plans will fail, others will succeed, wholly or partially. Gradually, firms and employees can learn from another's successes and failures.