Prosecuting Majority-Group Discrimination Claims: Statute Selection, Damages, and the Closing Filing Window

This session covers the timing decisions and forum choices that determine whether a majority-group claim survives and what it can recover. Attorneys will learn the filing window traps that forfeit viable claims — including employment applications that contractually shorten the Section 1981 limitations period, and why a timely EEOC charge does not toll the Section 1981 clock — the 90-day right-to-sue letter, Section 1981 as the rescue count when Title VII claims fall away, state-law analogs as the uncapped forum, and the Title IX question now before the Supreme Court as a possible new route outside the damages caps, closing with extended practitioner Q&A.

This session covers the litigation mechanics a plaintiff’s attorney must master after Ames v. Ohio Department of Youth Services (2025): how to survive dismissal, navigate the McDonnell Douglas battleground at summary judgment, and construct a pattern record using DEI-related discovery. Attorneys will learn how to identify comparator evidence by circuit, deploy Muldrow’s lowered harm threshold for non-termination adverse actions, and use EEOC guidance and government litigation as a discovery roadmap. Attendees will leave with a working understanding of the specific evidentiary architecture needed to move a majority-group discrimination claim from complaint through summary judgment.