Professor Samantha Prince quoted in Law.com article about new Uber pilot program

CARLISLE, Pa. — Professor Samantha Prince was quoted in the Law.com article entitled “What About Men? Uber’s ‘Women Preferences’ Plan Draws Scrutiny.”

Uber is launching a pilot program in three cities that will allow women to choose to have a woman driver. The reason is for safety concerns. Prince was asked whether male drivers could bring Title VII discrimination suits claiming the program will take work away from them. Prince conversed with reporter Emily Cousins, informing her that Title VII is for employees, and for federal purposes, Uber drivers are independent contractors.

The Uber program allows women to request a woman driver. Even if they originally make such a selection, they can change it to ride with a male driver. Prince mentioned that quantifying damages if such a case was brought would be difficult.

Prince pointed out that if state laws do provide discrimination protections to independent contractors (and some do), then the public policy of safety should outweigh any potential economic harm that male drivers experience.

Prince has written and spoken about gig workers. She is regularly contacted by reporters to answer questions in this developing area of the law. In 2022, she authored two articles on the topic, “The AB5 Experiment—Should States Adopt California’s Worker Classification Law?” and “The Shoe Is About to Drop for the Platform Economy: Understanding the Current Worker Classification Landscape in Preparation for a Changed World.”

Professor Samantha Prince is an associate professor of law. She has a Master of Laws in Taxation from Georgetown University Law Center and was a partner in a regional law firm where she handled transactional matters that ranged from an initial public offering to regular representation of a publicly traded company. A significant part of her practice was in employee benefits, including retirement plan design and operation. Her expertise from practice has fueled her research, enabling her to become an expert on 401(k) vesting schedules, employee benefits transparency, and gig work. In practice, most of her clients were small- to medium-sized businesses and entrepreneurs, including start-ups. Professor Prince brought her practice knowledge to the Law School and established the Penn State Dickinson Law entrepreneurship program. She is an advisor for the Entrepreneurship Law Certificate that is available to students and is the founder and moderator of the Inside Entrepreneurship Law blog.