Supreme Court Grants Cert to Resolve Circuit Split on Whether LGBTQ Bias is "Sex" Discrimination under Title VII

The US Supreme Court granted cert today in Altitude Express v. Zarda, RG & GR Harris Funeral Homes v. EEOC, and Bostock v. Clayton County on the question of "Whether Title VII prohibits discrimination against transgender people based on (1) their status as transgender or (2) sex stereotyping under Price Waterhouse v. Hopkins, 490 U. S. 228 (1989)."

Wash Post, Supreme Court to Decide if Anti-Harassment Employment Laws Protect on Basis of Sexual Orientation and Gender Identity

The Supreme Court on Monday added what could be landmark issues to its docket for the next term: whether federal anti-discrimination laws protect on the basis of sexual orientation and gender identity.

 

The court accepted three cases for the term that begins in October. They include a transgender funeral home director who won her case after being fired; a gay skydiving instructor who successfully challenged his dismissal; and a social worker who was unable to convince a court that he was unlawfully terminated because of his sexual orientation.

 

The cases shared a common theme: whether Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which forbids discrimination on the basis of sex, is broad enough to encompass discrimination based on gender identity or sexual orientation.

Bloomberg, Supreme Court Can Settle Split on LGBT Bias in the Workplace

At least nine federal circuit courts ruled in decisions prior to 2007 that sexual orientation wasn’t covered by Title VII of the 1964 Civil Rights Act, which prohibits bias against workers and job applicants based on their “sex.” The tide began to shift in 2015, when the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission decided in a federal sector case that Title VII does apply to sexual orientation.

 

In a groundbreaking decision in 2017, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit became the first federal appeals court to rule that Title VII covers sexual orientation when it said a lesbian job applicant could sue an Indiana community college for discrimination. While the Eleventh Circuit decided earlier that year that the law doesn’t apply to sexual orientation, the Second Circuit deepened the split in the courts with its 2018 ruling that it does.

The Supreme Court Just Took Up a Set of Very Big Cases on LGBTQ Rights

The Court agreed to hear three cases that have to do with whether existing federal bans on sex discrimination in the workplace also prohibit discrimination based on sexual orientation or gender identity. In the consolidated Altitude Express Inc. v. Zarda and Bostock v. Clayton County, Georgia, a skydiving instructor and a child welfare services coordinator, respectively, said they were fired for being gay. And in R.G. & G.R. Harris Funeral Homes v. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, a funeral home employee said she was fired because she came out as transgender.***

 

The cases cover a big gap in LGBTQ rights in the US: Under federal and most states’ laws, LGBTQ people aren’t explicitly protected from discrimination in the workplace, housing, or public accommodations (like restaurants, hotels, and other places that serve the public).