In 1991, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in UAW v Johnson Controls that Title VII of the 1964 Civil Rights Act, as amended by the 1978 Pregnancy Discrimination Act (PDA), forbids sex-specific fetal-protection policies. The crux of the case involved OSHA’s lead standard and Johnson Controls decision to bar women from working with lead if they were capable of bearing children. In a nutshell, the Supreme Court unanimously agreed employers couldn’t do that.
The takeaway on Johnson Controls by employers centered on these three opinions issued by the court: