Ann Hopkins Case Study

Ann Hopkins filed suit against her former employer Price Waterhouse in District Court in 1984. Hopkins charged Price Waterhouse with gender discrimination during their decision on her partnership validity for the company. In the end the court ruled in favor of Hopkins and they said, “the Policy Board’s decision not to admit the plaintiff to partnership was tainted by discriminatory evaluations that were the the direct result of its failure to address the evident problem of sexual stereotyping in partner’s evaluations.” (Ann Hopkins (B) Case Page 1) It is also important to note that in 1989 the Supreme Court lowered the standards of proof for this case and sent the case back to District Court. With the lower proof standards, the court was again

It would take a 75% vote of the entire partnership to vote a partner out. Timothy Coffey, a partner of the firm, said, “One of the great risks of admitting partners to our firm is that, one, they’re less supervised, and, secondly, they are more tenured and therefore people have a likelihood or potential of abusing authority…” (Ann Hopkins Case Page 3) This risk alone is what made the partnership evaluation process so serious. The case study also goes on to say that there had been previous partnership candidates who were held because of their poor interpersonal skills. According to the partners, Price Waterhouse had, “consistently placed a high premium on a candidate’s ability to deal with subordinates and peers on an interpersonal basis…” (Ann Hopkins Case Page 3) With this emphasis on interpersonal skills and Ann Hopkins’ lackluster record in that department, there is discrimination-free evidence as to why Price Waterhouse held

Throughout her time with Price Waterhouse, Ann Hopkins was known, by those who worked with her, to have low skills in the interpersonal department. One instance of this came when she got into a violent argument with Kaplan from Albuquerque after he tried to review the BIA job. Kaplan reported being on the receiving end of 45 minutes of obscenities from Ann Hopkins. Kaplan also went on to say that he saw Hopkins as an obstacle in his advancement in the firm and he ultimately decided to leave the firm a few years after the incident. (Ann Hopkins Case Page 5) Another instance of this occurred in 1981 when she had lunch with Beyer and Krulwich when she began to criticize some of the people who worked in the office. Ann’s comments gradually got more intense until the point where Krulwich found it necessary to end the lunch then and there and insist on heading back to the office. (Ann Hopkins Case Page 7) The summer following this incident was when Hopkins met with Fred Laughlin for the first time. Laughlin was sent to counsel Hopkins and he reportedly told her to, “be more careful with [her] language.” (Ann Hopkins Case Page 7) Despite having this counseling with Laughlin, Hopkins still managed to find herself in hot water in projects that came afterwards. One such case happened in 1982 when she worked with the St. Louis office proposal for the