Of Motives and Maleness: A Critical View of Mixed Motive Doctrine in Title VII Sex Discrimination Cases

Over the last decade critical legal scholars, including feminist and critical race theorists, have mounted a compelling challenge to the intentionalist model of discrimination embodied in constitutional and equal opportunity law. Under this traditional model, a plaintiff challenging an action as discriminatory must prove that the defendant, whether legislature or employer, intended to discriminate; in other words, liability turns on proof of the decision maker's discriminatory state of mind. Critical analyses move beyond the more obvious criticism that "intent" is extremely difficult to prove to reveal how this conception of discrimination disadvantages groups that equal opportunity law was designed to help.