Supreme Court Will Hear Title IX Transgender Discrimination Case and Case Challenging Social Media Restrictions on Sex Offenders
The Supreme Court substantially enlivened its docket for the October 2016 Term on October 28 when it granted petitions for certiorari in Gloucester County School Board v. G.G., No. 16-273, and Packingham v. North Carolina, No. 15-1194. In Gloucester, a school district in Virginia, obligated not to discriminate because of sex under Title IX … <Read More>
It seems that anything that could go wrong did go wrong – legally speaking, that is – when William Cornwell died on June 19, 2014, believing he had made a will leaving his entire estate to Thomas Doyle, the man with whom he had shared his life for more than half a century. Cornwell had not involved a lawyer in preparing and signing the will, apparently, because no lawyer would have made the simple mistake … <Read More>
I am giving a talk at NY Law School under the auspices of the Justice Action Center tomorrow, Oct. 19, about the current controversy over Title IX and the rights of transgender students. I’ve prepared a case table to distribute at the talk and thought I would post it here as a useful reference. The table covers U.S. appellate rulings from 2000 to date on gender identity discrimination claims. I count decisions by the EEOC … <Read More>
The Court of Appeals of Arizona ruled on October 11 that as a result of the U.S. Supreme Court’s ruling in Obergefell v. Hodges, 135 S. Ct. 2584 (2015), holding that same-sex couples have a constitutional right to marry and that their marriages must receive equal treatment under the law to those of different-sex couples, the Arizona courts must construe the state’s paternity statute in a gender neutral way so that the same-sex spouse of … <Read More>
Two federal trial courts have allowed Title VII claims by law enforcement officers, one gay and the other transgender, to proceed over employer protests early in October. On October 4, U.S. District Judge Jennifer A. Dorsey granted summary judgment to Bradley Roberts, a transgender man employed as a police officer by the Clark County School District in Nevada, on his claim of gender discrimination in violation of Title VII and the Nevada Equal Rights Law, … <Read More>
The Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court (SJC) ruled on October 4 that the former same-sex partner of a woman who gave birth to two children through donor insemination during the women’s relationship can seek to establish full legal parentage of the children under the state’s statute concerning parentage of children born out of wedlock. Partanen v. Gallagher, SJC-12018, 2016 Mass. LEXIS 759, 2016 WL 5721061.
Although the state’s courts have in the past recognized various rights … <Read More>
In a decision notably lacking in empathy for transgender people and the slights and humiliations they suffer on a regular basis, U.S. District Judge Gregory H. Woods granted New York City’s motion to dismiss a complaint by Marlow White, self-identified as a man of transgender experience, that his 14th Amendment rights were violated by NYPD officers and the City when the police failed to respond to the continued verbal harassment of White by Napoleon … <Read More>
Responding to the difficulties encountered by same-sex couples who entered into Vermont civil unions (and, beginning in 2009, same-sex marriages) and then lived in other states where their legal unions were denied recognition for purposes of dissolution or divorce, Vermont amended its divorce and annulment law in 2012 to provide that couples legally united in Vermont and living elsewhere who sought to dissolve their unions but had no vehicle to do that in the courts … <Read More>
Within days of each other, two federal district judges have issued preliminary injunctions requiring public schools to allow transgender students to use restrooms consistent with the students’ gender identity. U.S. District Judge Algenon L. Marbley of the Southern District of Ohio, based in Cincinnati, issued his order on September 26 against the Highland Local School District on behalf of a “Jane Doe” 11-year-old elementary school student, in Board of Education v. U.S. Department of Education, … <Read More>
In what may be the first application of the recent New York Court of Appeals decision, Brooke S.B. v. Elizabeth A.C.C., 2016 N.Y. Slip Op 05903 (August 30, 2016), which adopted a new definition of “parent” for purposes of the state’s Domestic Relations Law so as to account for cases of same-sex couples raising children, the New York Appellate Division, 2nd Department, based in Brooklyn, ruled on September 6 that a gay man who was … <Read More>