ACLU in Supreme Court 2020s


On Jobs: No discrimination for sexual orientation or gender identity

By a vote of 6-3, the court said Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which makes it illegal for employers to discriminate because of a person's sex, also covers sexual orientation and transgender status. It upheld rulings from lower courts that said sexual orientation discrimination was a form of sex discrimination.

The transgender case ruled on by the court involved Aimee Stephens, who was dismissed from her job at a Michigan funeral home two weeks after she told them she was transgender. Her boss explained she failed to follow the dress code.

The ACLU told the court hers was a clear case of sex discrimination, because if she had been assigned female sex at birth she would not have been fired for wanting to come to work dressed as a woman. Instead Stephens was assigned male sex and was fired because she failed to conform to the sex stereotypes of her employer, it argued.

The Trump administration had urged the court to rule that Title VII does not cover cases like these.

Source: NBC News on 2020 SCOTUS rulings Jun 15, 2020

The above quotations are from Supreme Court decisions 2020 to date.
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Page last updated: Mar 21, 2022