There is no individualized determination by the teacher's doctor -- or the school board's -- as to any particular teacher's ability to continue at her job. The rules contain an irrebuttable presumption of physical incompetency, and that presumption applies even when the medical evidence as to the individual woman's physical status might be wholly to the contrary. (Skotzko 65).
The Court did not say what it considered an appropriate time to take leave. It instead alluded to the fact that the woman, herself, with the advice and certification of her physician, should decide when to leave and when to resume work. The Court also did not indicate whether this ruling shoud apply to private institutions. Thus, such determinations must be made on a case-by-case basis.
The one dissenting Justice Rehnquist, along with the Chief Justice, viewed the majority decision in terms of philosophical controversy over the validity of presumptions as bases of lawmaking. In his opinion, Justice Stewart "enlists the Court in another quixotic engagement in his apparently unending war on irrebuttable presumptions" (Skotzko 66-67). In other words, it was Rehnquist's consise message that a law will remedy some problems equally well for all to whom it may apply must be the basis of modern legislation. There was a time in pre-Parliament...
Most students of government consider the shift from this sort of determination...to a relatively uniform body of rules enancted by a body exercising legislative authority, to have been a significant move forward in the acheivement of a civilized political society."
Rehnquist concluded that "the Court will have to strain valiantly in order to avoid having today's opinion lend to the invalidation of mandatory retirement statutes for government employees" and "The Court's disenchantment with 'irrefutable presumptions'and its preference for 'individualized determination,' is in the last analysis nothing less than an attack upon the very notion of lawmaking itself" ((Skotzko 67).
The court concluded that the rules passed by the Boards of Education were arbitrary and unduly punitive against female teachers who choose to have children. As a result of this case, each teacher in the present-day U.S. school system, therefore determines when it is appropriate to begin her maternity leave in conjunction with both the institution's administrators and medical professionals.
References
Skotzko, Eugene. "Significant decisions in labor cases." Monthly Labor Review. April 1974. 97, pp. 65-67.
