Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg died on September 18, 2020, age 87, having served on the Supreme Court of the United States since August 10, 1993. Throughout her tenure on the Court she had been a staunch supporter of LGBTQ rights, joining all of the pro-LGBTQ rights majorities and dissenting from all of the adverse decisions except for two in which the Court was unanimous.
In 1993, she joined Justice David Souter’s opinion for the Court … <Read More>
Acting Director Craig E. Leen of the Office of Federal Contract Compliance Programs (OFCCP), an agency within the U.S. Department of Labor that is responsible for enforcing the non-discrimination policies with which federal contractors must comply, issued a “Directive” to agency staff and federal contractors on August 10, construing three recent Supreme Court decisions and two Trump Executive Orders to allow contractors to discriminate in carrying out their contracts based on their religious beliefs.
The … <Read More>
The United States Supreme Court ruled on June 4 that overt hostility to religion had tainted the decision process in the Colorado Civil Rights Commission when it ruled that baker Jack Phillips and his Masterpiece Cakeshop had unlawfully discriminated against Charlie Craig and Dave Mullins in 2012 by refusing to make them a wedding cake. Writing for the Court, Justice Anthony M. Kennedy reaffirmed the right of the states to ban discrimination because of sexual … <Read More>
At the end of May the Supreme Court had received two new petitions asking it to address the question whether the ban on employment discrimination “because of sex” under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 can be interpreted to apply to claims of discrimination because of sexual orientation.
Altitude Express, the former employer of the late Donald Zarda, a skydiving instructor who claimed he was dismissed because of his sexual orientation in … <Read More>
Lambda Legal has announced that it will petition the Supreme Court to decide whether Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which bans employment discrimination because of sex, also bans discrimination because of sexual orientation. Lambda made the announcement on July 6, when the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 11th Circuit, based in Atlanta, announced that the full circuit court would not reconsider a decision by a three-judge panel that had … <Read More>
At last, a federal district judge has expressly relied on the EEOC’s ruling from July 2015 that sexual orientation discrimination claims can be brought under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964.
U.S. District Judge Myron H. Thompson of the Middle District of Alabama, rejecting the recommendation of a U.S. Magistrate Judge that a sexual orientation discrimination complaint under Title VII be dismissed on jurisdictional grounds, determined that the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission … <Read More>