Page:Lamps Plus, Inc. v. Frank Varela.pdf/23

Rh practiced discrimination to contract away the right to enforce civil rights in the courts.” Barrentine v. Arkansas–Best Freight System, Inc., 450 U. S. 728, 750 (1981) (Burger, C. J., dissenting).

Notwithstanding recent steps to counter the Court’s current jurisprudence, mandatory individual arbitration continues to thwart “effective access to justice” for those encountering diverse violations of their legal rights. DIRECTV, 577 U. S., at ___ (, dissenting) (slip op., at 1). The Court, paradoxically reciting the mantra that “[c]onsent is essential,” ante, at 7, has facilitated companies’ efforts to deny employees and consumers the “important right” to sue in court, and to do so collectively, by inserting solo-arbitration-only clauses that parties lacking bargaining clout cannot remove. CompuCredit Corp. v. Greenwood, 565 U. S. 95, 115 (2012) (, dissenting). When companies can “muffl[e] grievance[s] in the cloakroom of arbitration,” Merrill Lynch, Pierce, Fenner & Smith, Inc. v. Ware, 414 U. S. 117, 136 (1973), the result is inevitable: curtailed enforcement of laws “designed to advance the well-being of [the] vulnerable.” Epic, 584 U. S., at ___ (, dissenting) (slip op., at 26). “Congressional correction of the Court’s elevation of the FAA over” the rights of employees and consumers “to act in concert” remains “urgently in order.” Id., at ___ (slip op., at 2).