Abstract
Legal scholars optimistically predicted that the adoption of remote work would provide historically excluded workers upward mobility through an opportunity to join the workforce or access better jobs. Remote work is now widespread and the empirical data on it demonstrates that, in practice, remote work arrangements are subject to the same workplace norms and biases that disadvantage marginalized groups on-site, risking exacerbating instead of remediating inequalities. Specifically, the data suggests that, in some instances, employers are deploying remote work unequally, denying remote work to workers of color who particularly benefit from flexibility.
This Article explains how the legal system is failing to respond to this problem. In remote work discrimination litigation, workers’ claims frequently fail. This is because the statutory language of Title VII—our seminal workplace anti-discrimination statute—is too narrowly interpreted. Although the Supreme Court broadened the class of detrimental employer actions that can sustain a disparate treatment claim in Muldrow v. City of St. Louis, discrimination in remote work remains unresolved. Courts are inconsistent in their holdings that remote work discrimination claims are or are not actionable. Some courts consider remote work to be a rarefied perk, peripheral and too removed from the core features of employment to be actionable. As a result, workers subjected to discriminatory remote work practices too often have no legal recourse.
This Article argues that these common judicial practices are anachronistic. Remote work has shifted from a rarefied perk to a core feature of employment. The norm shift requires courts to adjust their interpretation of remote work and consistently acknowledge that discriminatory remote work practices are squarely within the reach of our workplace anti-discrimination laws. This Article calls for an interpretation of Title VII that would democratize access to remote work.
Volume
110
Issue
5
Page
2345
Year
2026
Recommended Citation
Natalia Ramírez Lee,
Flexible Work, Rigid Discrimination,
110
Minn. L. Rev.
2345
(2026).
Available at:
https://scholarship.law.umn.edu/minnlrev/vol110/iss5/5
Rights
http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC-EDU/1.0/
Publication Abbreviation
Minn. L. Rev.
