U.S. Department
of Justice
United States v. Michigan Department of Corrections (E.D. Mich.)
On June 13, 2016, the United States filed a complaint in United States v. State of Michigan and Michigan Department of Corrections (E.D. Mich.). The complaint alleged that Defendants violated Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 (Title VII) by discriminating against female correctional officers (COs) at Women’s Huron Valley Correctional Facility (WHV) by improperly designating several assignments as female-only and by imposing a transfer freeze only for female COs who wanted to transfer from WHV to another MDOC facility. On June 3, 2021, the Court entered a settlement agreement resolving the case. The agreement required Defendants to provide $750,000 in monetary relief to affected female WHV COs, 15 priority transfers for female COs over a three-year period, and changes to its policies and procedures including the creation of a new review system to consider single-sex assignments, a requirement that any transfer freeze be gender-neutral, a standard for lifting the WHV transfer freeze, and implementation of a new recruitment and retention plan.
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