734
Opinion of the Court
vided no statutorily guaranteed right to family leave, offering instead only voluntary or discretionary leave programs. Three States left the amount of leave time primarily in employers' hands.8 Congress could reasonably conclude that such discretionary family-leave programs would do little to combat the stereotypes about the roles of male and female employees that Congress sought to eliminate. Finally, four States provided leave only through administrative regulations or personnel policies, which Congress could reasonably conclude offered significantly less firm protection than a federal law.9 Against the above backdrop of limited state leave policies, no matter how generous petitioners' own may have been, see post, at 755 (dissent), Congress was justified in enacting the FMLA as remedial legislation.10
Ann. § 4-21-408(a) (1998); U. S. Dept. of Labor, Women's Bureau, State Maternity/Family Leave Law, p. 12 (June 1993) (citing a Virginia personnel policy).
8 See 3 Colo. Code Regs. § 708-1, Rule 80.8 (2002); Kan. Admin. Regs. 21-32-6 (2003); N. H. Stat. Ann. § 354-A:7(VI)(b) (Michie Supp. 2000). Oklahoma offered only a system by which employees could voluntarily donate leave time for colleagues' family emergencies. Okla. Stat., Tit. 74, § 840-2.22 (historical note) (West 2002).
9 See 3 Colo. Code Regs. § 708-1, Rule 80.8 (2002); Kan. Admin. Regs. 21-32-6 (2003); Wis. Admin. Code ch. DWD 225 (1997) (former ch. ILHR 225); State Maternity/Family Leave Law, supra, at 12 (Virginia).
10 Contrary to the dissent's belief, we do not hold that Congress may "abrogat[e] state immunity from private suits whenever the State's social benefits program is not enshrined in the statutory code and provides employers with discretion," post, at 753, or when a State does not confer social benefits "as generous or extensive as Congress would later deem appropriate," post, at 752. The dissent misunderstands the purpose of the FMLA's family-leave provision. The FMLA is not a "substantive entitlement program," post, at 754; Congress did not create a particular leave policy for its own sake. See infra, at 737-738. Rather, Congress sought to adjust family-leave policies in order to eliminate their reliance on, and perpetuation of, invalid stereotypes, and thereby dismantle persisting gender-based barriers to the hiring, retention, and promotion of women in the workplace. In pursuing that goal, for the reasons discussed above,
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