The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC), the agency charged with enforcement of federal bans on sex discrimination in employment, has ruled that a transgender woman employed in a civilian position by the U.S. Department of the Army, is entitled to use restroom facilities consistent with her gender identity, despite the agency’s objection to providing such access before the individual has undergone sex-reassignment surgery. Although the EEOC had previously ruled that refusal to employ somebody because … <Read More>
Title VII
Is ENDA Necessary? Or Will Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 Take Care of LGBT Discrimination
One of the major legislative goals of the LGBT rights movement is to get Congress to pass the Employment Non-Discrimination Act (ENDA), a measure that has been pending in Congress in one form or another since 1996 (with predecessor “gay rights” bills having been introduced since the mid-1970s). ENDA would prohibit employment discrimination because of a person’s sexual orientation, gender identity or expression, but would prohibit only intentional discrimination, not employer practices that are neutral … <Read More>
Justice Department Finds ATF Discriminated Unlawfully in Transgender Discrimination Case
The Justice Department’s Complaint Adjudication Office (CAO) issued a decision on July 8 holding that the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives (ATF) violated Title VII of the Civil Rights Act in 2011 when it denied a position as a contract Ballistics Forensic Technician to an applicant who was in the process of transitioning from male to female. In its first such ruling, the CAO applied an earlier decision in the case by the … <Read More>
Fixing Problems Before They Occur – The Need to Redraft ENDA (the Employment Non-Discrimination Act).
The Employment Non-Discrimination Act (ENDA), a bill now pending in Congress, would make it an unlawful employment practice for employers that are now covered by Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 to discriminate in hiring, firing and terms and conditions of employment because of the sexual orientation or gender identity or expression of an individual. The version of the bill introduced in Congress this year uses language almost identical to that found … <Read More>
Pregnant Lesbian Will Get Jury Trial Against Catholic School
Senior U.S. District Judge Arthur Spiegel (Southern District of Ohio) ruled on January 30 that Christa Dias, who was fired as a computer technology coordinator from two schools of the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Cincinnati after she told her principal at one of the schools that she was pregnant, is entitled to a jury trial of her pregnancy discrimination complaint under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, but not of her breach … <Read More>