During the past 40 years, the U.S. Supreme Court has repeatedly interpreted the Federal Arbitration Act (or FAA) to require courts to enforce nearly all arbitration agreements between private parties, regardless of the parties' relative resources or bargaining power, the public's interest in the parties' dispute, or the myriad ways that forced arbitration serves to "stack the deck of justice" in favor of moneyed corporations, as the New York Times explained in a 2015 feature series.

Since its passage in 1925, the FAA has permitted only one substantive exception: for "seamen, railroad employees, or any other class of workers engaged in foreign or interstate commerce."  On March 3, 2022, President Biden signed a new law that creates a second. The Ending Forced Arbitration of Sexual Assault and Sexual Harassment Act amends the FAA to allow employees to void pre-dispute arbitration clauses for claims of sexual assault or sexual harassment. This means sexual assault and sexual harassment claims that arise or accrue after March 3, 2022, can be pursued in court, with all the public scrutiny that entails.