To the surprise of civil rights advocates, the Supreme Court on Tuesday strengthened workplace anti-discrimination laws, ruling that employees who say they were punished for complaining of bias can sue for damages. In a pair of decisions, the court concluded that claims of retaliation are covered by long-standing civil rights laws, even though this kind of discrimination was not mentioned specifically in the statutes.

This expansion of employee rights stands in sharp contrast to a series of pro-business rulings limiting the rights of workers that were made last year by the Supreme Court.

Tuesday's decisions do not amount to a sharp change in the law. Most civil rights laws already protect employees against being punished for complaining of bias based on their race, religion, gender, national origin or age.

However, in both cases the court read an older law broadly to give employees more rights to sue for discrimination.