April 16, 2026
In the two years since the U.S. Supreme Court eased the requirements for bringing workplace discrimination claims in Muldrow v. St. Louis, courts’ cautious approach to applying the worker-friendly standard has allowed more bias cases to proceed without opening the floodgates, experts said.
In the Muldrow ruling , handed down April 17, 2024, the justices unanimously disavowed the heightened legal hurdles that some lower courts had imposed to block workplace bias cases over employment actions considered to have less serious consequences.
Under the justices’ standard, employees need not show they faced “significant” harm, but rather “some harm,” to move their suits ahead.Â
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Worker-side attorney Harini Srinivasan, a partner in Cohen Milstein Sellers & Toll PLLC’s civil rights and employment litigation practice, agreed. She said Muldrow hasn’t “opened the floodgates” but has “meaningfully moved the needle.”
“It results in a broader, more realistic understanding of harm that’s influencing multiple areas of employment law but still being worked out in a fairly disciplined way in the lower courts,” she said.
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“Claims that might once have been dismissed as too minor — whether involving transfers, assignments or delays in accommodation — are now getting further into litigation, including past summary judgment,” Cohen Milstein’s Srinivasan said.
Read 2 Years On, Courts’ Caution Has Tempered Muldrow’s Impact.