Civil Rights Groups Hail Pro-LGBT Employment Ruling
(Reuters) - A U.S. appeals court in Manhattan on Monday ruled that a federal law banning sex bias in the workplace also prohibits discrimination against gay employees, becoming only the second court to do so.
The 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals overruled prior decisions and said that a worker’s sex is necessarily a factor in discrimination based on sexual orientation.
The ruling went against a court brief filed by the Trump administration in 2017 that said Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 was not intended to provide protections to gay workers.
The 2nd Circuit revived a lawsuit by the estate of Donald Zarda, a former skydiving instructor who said he was fired after he told a customer he was gay and she complained. Zarda’s estate was backed in the appeal by dozens of large companies, including Alphabet Inc’s Google, Microsoft Corp, CBS Corp and Viacom Inc.
Zarda died in a BASE-jumping accident after the lawsuit was filed.
Zarda’s former employer, Altitude Express Inc, and companies that have faced similar lawsuits have argued that when Congress adopted Title VII more than 50 years ago, it did not consider whether the law’s ban on sex bias included discrimination based on sexual orientation.
But lesbian, bisexual, gay and transgender groups and the federal Equal Employment Opportunity Commission have increasingly argued that sexual orientation is a function of a person’s gender.
The 2nd Circuit agreed on Monday in its 10-3 decision.
Last April, the Chicago-based 7th U.S. Circuit became the first court to find that Title VII bans gay bias in the workplace.
The U.S. Supreme Court in December declined to take up a different case out of Georgia that posed the same question.
Code:
https://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/civil-rights-act-protects-lgbtq-workers_us_5a94323ee4b01f65f598dae4
From DNC chairman Tom Perez:
Under Donald Trump and Jeff Sessions, the U.S. Justice Department has been wielded as a weapon of injustice, arguing that employers should be able to fire people simply because of their sexual orientation or gender identity. But despite the Trump administration’s best efforts, the LGBTQ community and their allies have prevailed in federal court today.
This is a major victory for anyone who believes in the promise of full equality for all Americans, and a massive blow to Republican leaders and lawmakers standing in the way of progress. Democrats are proud to stand shoulder to shoulder with our brothers and sisters in the LGBTQ community, and we will always fight to end discrimination in all its forms.
From GLAAD:
This strong affirmation that sexual orientation is protected under Title VII is a vital step forward, but it is imperative to continue to fight for the courts to affirm gender identity is also protected by denying the Trump Administration attempts to block the transgender community from having standing under the language of sex discrimination.
Much like their attempts to undermine protections for workers based on sexual orientation, the Trump Administration has been working to write an anti-trans interpretation of sex discrimination into law by denying that gender identity is protected under the Civil Rights Act. In October 2017 Jeff Sessions reversed a federal policy that interpreted Title VII to include protections for the transgender community on the basis of sex.
From Lambda Legal:
Today’s opinion is a huge victory in the fight for equality and fairness for all LGBT workers,” said Greg Nevins, Director of Lambda Legal’s Employment Fairness Project. “At Lambda Legal’s urging, another federal court of appeals has recognized that federal law protects LGBT people from discrimination because denying someone the right to a job because they are attracted to someone of the same sex is a form of sex discrimination, plain and simple. We will continue pushing this issue until every LGBT person in this country benefits from the protection that our federal law provides by its plain terms against discrimination because of a person’s sex, including their sexual orientation.”
From Freedom For All Americans:
Today’s ruling is the latest victory affirming that employees should be evaluated only on their work ethic and job performance – not on who they are or who they love. Courts across America are increasingly in agreement that who a person loves has no impact on what they produce in the workplace, and no one should be singled out because of their sexual orientation.
Freedom for All Americans is proud to stand shoulder-to-shoulder with the attorney and legal organizations that made today’s win possible. Momentum is on our side, but we must continue doing the work of winning in both the courts and state legislatures. Our job isn’t done until the patchwork of different state laws is ended and all people are uniformly protected from discrimination, no matter what zip code they call home.
Code:
http://www.joemygod.com/2018/02/26/civil-rights-groups-hail-pro-lgbt-employment-ruling/
