2. The Supreme Court Ruled Against Civil Rights Abroad: On the 26th of March 1991, the Supreme Court, in a 6-3 decision in EEOC vs Aramco & Bourselan vs Aramco, ruled that Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which prohibits discrimination on the basis of race, color, religion or national origin, wasn't meant to apply outside the USA and its territories. The decision was seen by many legal experts as the first major test of the overseas application of the civil rights act, and the ruling may have a broad reach over all Americans working overseas
 

3. What Was the Bourselan Case All About? Ali Bourselan, a naturalized U.S. citizen, sued Aramco in a U.S. Federal Court contending that he was discriminated against on the basis of race, religion and national origin while working in Saudi Arabia for Aramco Services Co.
 

The case reached the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit in New Orleans in early 1990, and in a 9 to 5 decision this court ruled that Mr. Bourselan lost his civil rights when he left the country. Said the court, "We sit ... in this case to consider a single question: whether Title VII {of the civil rights act} regulates the employment practices of U.S. employers which employ U.S. citizens outside the United States."
 

Writing for the nine-member majority on the 14-member court, Judge W. Eugene Davis said there was no evidence of a clear congressional intent to apply the civil rights act beyond U.S. borders. The majority said the civil rights act was "curiously silent in a number of areas where Congress ordinarily speaks if it wants to extend its legislation beyond our borders."
 

In a dissent, the minority justices said the ruling turned the civil rights act into "an empty promise to the thousands of American women and minorities employed in other countries by American multinational firms. Such individuals face the dilemma of accepting an assignment abroad, often considered to be a lucrative opportunity only at a cost of relinquishing the protections that guard them against discrimination at home."
 

The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) asked the solicitor general to appeal the case to the Supreme Court on its behalf. According to the EEOC, a definitive ruling was required because more than 2,000 U.S. firms operate 21,000 subsidiaries in about 121 foreign countries worldwide.
 

Joy Cherian, an EEOC commissioner who championed this appeal, said that while the appeals court decision applied only to non-federal employees overseas, the decision also had serious implications for civilian American employees working in foreign countries for both the military and the diplomatic corps.
 

4. What Should Be Done? Congress should revisit Title VII and amend it by specifically stating that it fully protects all U.S. citizens against racial, sexual and ethnic discrimination by American companies overseas, except where either the foreign law or international treaties compel a different result.