Both courts found that way because the fact that UPS believed that Crone lacked the necessary confrontational skills for the position in question was a non-discriminatory, non-pretextual reason to refuse to promote her. In fact, Crone's own testimony supported the idea that UPS's reason was non-pretextual, since she testified that she did not believe the ultimate decision-maker had engaged in sex-based discrimination, that she had problems in confrontational situations, and that she was aware that confrontation skills were necessary for the supervisory position.

Some critics would suggest that this decision opened the door to sex-based and other types of discrimination. However, these critics base their criticism on gender stereotyping that suggests that women are generally not well-suited for dealing with confrontation. While there may be legitimate sex-based differences in approaches to confrontation, the fact that women may be more open to negotiation and less likely to escalate a confrontational situation may actually make them better at dealing with conflict than men are. Furthermore, Crone's behavior of crying at work was outside of the norm for behavior for men or women. One of the expectations in the modern workplace is that employees, whether men or women, will not cry in business situations. Therefore, UPS's concern that Crone would not be able to deal with confrontation without crying, and would, therefore, lose the respect of her subordinates, was a well-founded position. Moreover, for Crone's claims to be successful, she would have had to establish that UPS would have promoted an equally-qualified man to the position. UPS did not promote a man who cried during confrontations to the position,...

To do so would have opened the door to open sexual discrimination, since bona fide occupational qualifications do not constitute sex-based discrimination. Therefore, if the court had accepted that women are emotionally weaker than men and incorporated that into law, it would have opened the door to employers only hiring men in supervisory positions that involved conflict or the potential for conflict. Because Crone merely reflected the current state of the law, DWI does not need to take additional measures to incorporate Crone into its EEO policy book and training, since the basis for the decision is that people are to be hired, fired, and promoted without regard to gender, which should already form the cornerstone of DWI's sex-discrimination policies and training.
References

Arkansas Civil Rights Act, Ark. Code Ann. 16-123-107(a).

Crone v. United States, No. 01-3595, (8th Cir. Aug. 30, 2002). Retrieved March 15, 2009 from Findlaw. Web site: http://caselaw.lp.findlaw.com/data2/circs/8th/013595p.pdf,

Sex-Based discrimination. (2009). Retrieved March 15, 2009 from the Equal Employment

Opportunity Commission. Web site: http://eeoc.gov/types/sex.html

Sexual harassment. (2009). Retrieved March 15, 2009 from the Equal Employment Opportunity

Commission. Web site: http://eeoc.gov/types/sexual_harassment.html

42 U.S.C.S. 2000(e)-5.