In 1979 the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission filed an antidiscrimination action against Sears, Roebuck and Company. The complaint covered patterns of sex discrimination between 1973 and 1980. It was the last of the major corporate sex bias cases to be litigated by the Commission, and the only one not to be settled out of court.
Central to Sears' arguments was the expert testimony of Rosalind Rosenberg, a professor of history at Barnard College, and a writer in women's studies. To counter her statements that women didn't want the high-commission sales jobs that were at issue in the case, the EEOC called on Alice Kessler-Harris, a professor of history at Hofstra University, and the author of several books and articles on women's work. Their opposing testimonies reached beyond the courtroom, stirring a vigorous debate throughout the labor history and women's history disciplines, and prompting extensive discourses in academic journals as well as panels at historians' conferences. A judgement on the case was handed down by District Court Judge John Norberg in January, 1986--a decisive victory for Sears Roebuck.
From the description of Research files of Jon Weiner relating to Equal Employment Opportunity Commission v. Sears, Roebuck and Company. (New York University). WorldCat record id: 477250656
