SCOTUS Rules 6-3 to Protect LGBT From Job Discrimination
Gorsuch: “We do not hesitate to recognize today a necessary consequence of that legislative choice: An employer who fires an individual merely for being gay or transgender defies the law.”
The Supreme Court ruled 6-3 in a decision that protects LGBT people from job discrimination.
They decided “that an employer who fires a worker for being gay or transgender violates Title VII of the Civil Rights Act, which already protected people from sex discrimination.”
The court considered three cases:
One came from New York, where a skydiver alleged he was fired in 2010 because he was gay. He died in an accident in 2014, but the case has continued. A second case, from Georgia, centered on a gay man who alleged his sexual orientation was the reason he was fired from his job as child-welfare services coordinator for the juvenile court system.
A third case involved a transgender worker in Detroit who alleged a funeral home there fired her after she said she was transitioning and would no longer present as a man. The plaintiff, Aimee Stephens, didn’t live to see the outcome of her case. She died May 12, at age 59, at her Detroit-area home.
Title of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 “prohibits employers from discriminating against workers, including in hiring and firing decisions, based on an employee’s sex.”
Chief Justice John Roberts and Justice Neil Gorsuch, who wrote the opinion, sided with the four liberal judges:
“Ours is a society of written laws. Judges are not free to overlook plain statutory commands on the strength of nothing more than suppositions about intentions or guesswork about expectations. In Title VII, Congress adopted broad language making it illegal for an employer to rely on an employee’s sex when deciding to fire that employee,” said the court’s opinion, written by Justice Neil Gorsuch.
“We do not hesitate to recognize today a necessary consequence of that legislative choice: An employer who fires an individual merely for being gay or transgender defies the law.”
Justices Samuel Alito, Clarence Thomas, and Brett Kavanaugh dissented.
Alito described today’s decision as “legislation.” He wrote that the document SCOTUS released “is in the form of a judicial opinion interpreting a statute, but that is deceptive.”
Kavanaugh wrote that “the responsibility to amend Title VII belongs to Congress and the President in the legislative process, not to this Court.” He cited the Constitution’s separation of powers.
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Comments
Since many homosexuals and transsexuals were victims of crime as children, they can have many deep psychological problems.
Mandating that a person who may have PTSD, dissociative identity disorders (including multiple personalities) and myriad other problems, is a tragedy being invited to happen.
These conditions are not created in an assembly line. One is not like another, although they may be in some respects similar.
This qualifies as civilizational failure. Nothing less.
So, judges are the be all, end all, eh?
*Mandating that a person who may have PTSD, dissociative identity disorders (including multiple personalities) and myriad other problems, be hired and cannot be fired, is a tragedy being invited to happen.
The effects of this ruling on the nations schools and the teachers and administrators whom are paid through taxation has not been considered – yet!
Legislating from the bench.
Another disaster.
Justice Alito had it right…..
“There is only one word for what the Court has done today: legislation. The document that the Court releases is in the form of a judicial opinion interpreting a statute, but that is deceptive,” Alito wrote.
We have reached the point in this country where we no longer have a Legislative branch of Government; the Senate and the House are nothing but 2 competing Kabuki theater shoes which exist solely to convince the rubes that they still have some say in the game.
they don’t. (we don’t)
The only true Legislative Branch now is the Supreme Court. It, with many assists from the lower courts, is the Source of all new Law in this country. And if you complain, you’re RACIST!
Is firing someone for being conservative allowed? How about criticizing Black Lives Matter? Or supporting free speech, religious freedom, or the rule of law? People have been fired or threatened with firing for all of these.
All of those are just fine as reason to fire someone. Preferably the employer will see the problem arising and nip it in the bud by firing the problem employee before he becomes a problem.
I see what you did there….
BLM is a fascist movement. Race has nothing to do with it:
https://thefederalist.com/2020/06/12/why-supporting-black-lives-matter-is-anti-christian-and-anti-life/
Black Lies Murder??????
It’s turning out that ‘white lies’ murder more.
The army of white zombies the left unleashed on this nation will be far more vicious in killing if permitted.
People raised in ghettos have some semblance of an excuse for violence and anarchy: their democrat and sharpton-like overseers ensured they grew up in it.
Losers who grew up in suburbs are far more dangerous after they taste blood.
Soros should be hunted down and killed like bin Laden.
Those aren’t protected classes; trans (and gay) people now are. Coming soon, protection for polygamy, pederasty, pedophlia, and assorted other things we were assured would never be accepted by the justice who found rights in a penumbra.
The original meaning of that language “making it illegal for an employer to rely on an employee’s sex” was BIOLOGICAL sex. Apparently the majority of members of SCOTUS don’t understand that basic fact.
When members of the Supreme Court can’t even read, we have a severe problem.
Exactly. Legislative intent counts. And no way in God’s green earth that any legislators intended such a thing. When it was written, homosexual acts were illegal in many states, if not all.
The same Court that has difficulty with the Right to keep and bear arms.
Gorsuch writing that opinion is very surprising and disappointing.
It now looks like girl’s/women’s sports may be destroyed and the CT athletes’ suit may go nowhere. It also appears that GWB picked Eisenhower’s Earl Warren in Roberts and DJT another “miss” in Gorsuch. I wonder if it is a problem of these presidents not doing enough of their own due diligence or their prior opinions really were nor predictive of what they would become.
These laws were written broadly because it was assumed that any reasonable person would clearly understand the intent of the laws. As we know, you could swing a cat on the floor of the DNC or maybe even congress and not be certain you will hit a reasonable person.
It makes sense. Legal scalars are a product of Liberal Arts not science.
“In Title VII, Congress adopted broad language making it illegal for an employer to rely on an employee’s sex when deciding to fire that employee,”
It is about attitude, not “sex”.
So, Free Association is still dead?
Very.
I noticed in the description of these cases that the fired person only had to “allege” they were fired for lbgt issues, there was no actual proof. It’s the same victim mentality, “everyone else must change because I’m offended”. 2) What happened to the state’s right or does that only apply to restrictive gun laws? So I guess we are just in a race to victim hood; find your victim class now and start claiming it because that is now how law is made in the US
Some lawyers are licking their chops. Lawsuits for all!
What you still don’t want to associate with a black person? Just playing devil’s advocate here.
You have that right, and people have the right to not associate with you because of it.
Rights don’t stop because someone might do or does do something other people don’t like with them. If they did, they wouldn’t be rights.
It’s been dead since long before now. It wasn’t even a zombie. No one pretends it matters.
Paging General Clinger. Every town and city will be required to rename a street …Castro. Since the LGBQWERTY overlaps with real psychological issues, employers are faced with expanded demands for health care coverage.
Watch for expanded dress codes now as that is really the major area to be pushed .
So alaskabob, you’re saying we might start seeing lawsuits against employers demanding they hire/maintain employees who don’t want to abide by dress/uniform codes? They will sue to dress in any manner they see fit, in accordance with their (fill in the blank) life/lifestyle? Wear whatever they please, have facial piercings/tattoos and other publicly visible tattoos? Split tongues and other such body modifications? People could target certain franchises they despise, fill out job applications, and when denied employment use lawfare to drain money and legal resources from said franchises? You’re so cynical if that’s the case (/sarc).
For the very reason you point out this decision will be causing chaos for decades.
I’m really not interested in seeing anymore tributes to McConnell on his judge appointments. I think this is probably a big part of the deal he and Pelosi negotiated to allow her to get everything she wanted in the virus “relief” bills.
The President appoints; the Senate only confirms.
Or the Senate blows them out of the water.
True. But in no case does the Senate Majority Leader “appoint” judges.
How many judges has the Senate failed to confirm? I don’t recall offhand any of Trump’s who’ve failed at confirmation (which doesn’t mean that it hasn’t happened). McConnell has been shoving them through in wholesale lots, which may be one of the few things he can take credit for.
That might make a little sense if the House had anything at all to do with confirming judges.
This decision illustrates two issues we need to remember:
1. Don’t immediately pop the champaign corks if a Republican president succeeds in getting Senate approval for a Supreme Court nominee. Wait a few years to see how they actually rule on Constitutional issues.
2. There is no reason for any Republican senator to vote to confirm a Democrat Supreme Court nominee. All Democrat nominees should be assumed to be anti-Constitution totalitarians – no exceptions.
We’ve known about #1 since at least Earl Warren. 😉
This slippery slope started many years ago when congress and the federal courts decided they had a right to impose rules in contracts between employees and employers ie: minimum wage, healthcare, family leave. If b you ever wondered what socialism looks like- here is a shining example. “You own your business, but the b government decides all the rules, provides financing, and dictates how you will run it”. This is why socialism is so hideous, we actually vote for this kind of regulatory nonsense”. Communists are just the distraction, they’ll never fire a shot but rather, sit back and wait for to vote for the same socialism or have it imposed via incrementalization and judicial activism
Not to quibble, but that’s not socialism. It’s generally called “fascism”, as in the Mussolini model.
Fascism is a quasi form, a precursor to socialism, where the separation of public and private domains incur a progressive merger.
But a system in which the means of production remain in private hands is not by definition socialism.
Who does Gorsuch think he’s impressing by adopting wholesale the insane language of the “transgender” advocates? The Left isn’t going to spare him. From his opinion:
“Or take an employer who fires a transgender person who was identified as a male at birth but who now identifies as a female. If the employer retains an otherwise identical employee who was identified as female at birth, the employer intentionally penalizes a person identified as male at birth for traits or actions that it tolerates in an employee identified as female at birth. Again, the individual employee’s sex plays an unmistakable and impermissible role in the discharge decision.”
Biological sex is merely being “identified” “at birth” as male or female?
He who controls the language …
Weird. I’m old enough to remember the ‘tolerant’ Left scolding others with “How will my gay marriage affect your life?”
Now we know.
I “play for the other rsam”, but oppose this decision on freedom of association and freedom of contract grounds.
Question A: Is there a right or wrong way to be black?
Question B: Is there a right or wrong way to behave sexually?
There’s a moral component to human sexual behavior that makes it incomparable to race or other in-born attributes. To make them comparable, one must deny that moral component and answer No to both questions. Be careful with that, because you’ll be claiming that any sex-related behavior is morally neutral.
But legislating morality is only bad when conservatives do it, amirite.
While the objectives of the Court’s action may be noble, the basis for the decision is horribly flawed.
If the Court had limited the decision to those who had completed transsexual transition [conversion from male or female genitalia to that of the opposite biological sex], they would have been on considerably more stable legal ground. However, they chose to expand the protections of Title VII to the preference for sexual partners. This drags us out into the legal swamp of unintended consequences.
The desent was correct in stating that the Court was legislating from the bench, in this case. It clearly stated in the decision that the plaintiffs acknowledged that the language of Title VII applied to the physical sexual characteristics of a person, not to the psychological characteristics of said person. It further stated that the legislative intent of the drafters of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 defined sex as the primary physical sexual characteristics of a human being, not that person’s psychological identification. Then they spent much of the 33 pages of the decision in either ignoring those two cogent points or explaining why they no longer applied. This was nothing more than an exercise in using the Court to legislatively engage in a social justice experiment.
No amount of surgery will ever make a male into a female, or vice versa. “Sex Change” surgery (a misnomer) was around when the Civil Rights Act was passed and enacted, yet the Congress did not include those faux females/males in coverage. Homosexuality was rather well known, yet the Congress did not include homosexuals or lesbians in coverage.
This was legislating from the bench, pure and simple. I guess the majority felt the need to remind us of just who actually holds the power in the US. Our Black Robed masters have no real limit on their power, whatever they wish to seize in the way of power is theirs, to do with as they wish and short of revolution there’s little we can do about it. We surely can’t rely on politicians to rectify the situation, they lack the cojones.
You are right about their power, this is exactly what they framers feared and gave them the least actual power. Our mistake was allowing them to assume the role of constitutional diviners. We the people should be the sole authority on what the constitution says, and a simple, original Websters dictionary would solve most of it. Somehow(not surprising) the missed the part about “it says what it says, and doesn’t say what it doesn’t say.”
I really don’t like those sounds coming from Roberts and Gorsuch. The SC should always hesitate before imposing arbitrary extensions of government power.
The phrase “plain statutory demands” is also inappropriate when dealing with amorphous and fuzzy concepts such as the modern meaning of any word with “trans” in it. “Transgender” simply doesn’t mean what it meant five years ago. Hitting moving targets is not something any court does well.
Judges seem not to realize that sex as used in Title VII refers to a condition, not an attitude or a practice. As the dissent points out, were Congress to wish otherwise, it alone has the authority to make that change.
I reject that Congress has that power:
The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people.
I’m talking about what the law says and means. Constitutionality is a separate question that must be raised as such to ensure the Court addresses it.
It doesn’t appear to have been, in the case decided.
I was about to write something intemperate.
This decision seems to be making a deliberate linguistic choice in using the word ‘sex’ and not the word ‘gender’.
From that choice and it’s distinction, we could see a line being created. Where clear statutory language and intent is based upon gender (biological) as in Title 9, that language may be unassailable based on the ruling here, which pertains to ‘sex’.
The court IMO, seems to have merely extended the definition of ‘sex’ to encompass both biological certainty and societal fluctuation. Personally, I can live with this distinction between sex and gender.
The court choosing to restrain the ability to fire an employee based solely upon that employees lifestyle choice seems to on the side of individual liberty. Obviously there are other questions unanswered regarding the ability of an employer to fire a trans employee based upon performance resulting from that employees choices.
Say Bob is the best salesman. Bob decides he is really Bobbie Sue and begins transitioning. Bobbie Sue wears dresses not a suit. Longstanding customers are outraged and refuse to do business with Bobbie Sue and sales revenue declines. Can Bobbie Sue be fired for poor performance? IMO, yes, even though the drop in sales is directly related to the transition from male to female.
Bob or Bobbie Sue, irrespective of outward appearance are hired to sell. If they can’t sell to the quota that’s their problem not the employer. Either can be fired for not meeting performance measures equally applied across the sales force.
You are right, that is true or should be. However, all BobbieSuebhas to do is “allege” discrimination and the FEDERAL labor relations board (especially under a dem president) can sanction you in a heartbeat, the state will suspend whatever license you have, and that is before the lawsuit is even filed where you are sued for hundreds of thousands or millions for “emotional distress” plus attorneys fees on both sides, should you lose.
The Court used the word “sex” because the law did.
Simple solution. Continue interviewing until you find a better qualified person for the job; terminate for reasons other than gender ID / preference, appearance, etc. And of course, document, document, document.
You can also do like my company did – have mass layoffs which 20 years ago which they called “right sizing”. Lay off according to performance and seniority. When business picks up again, hire back the ones you want knowing what you know about their performance history and in keeping with your business needs including image where that’s important to your customer base.
If as an employer you’re dumb enough to fire an employee on the day they come out, you deserve to be sued. It’s not lost on me that the 3 cases cited were all of the “alleged” variety. Which in my mind makes the SCOTUS decision of the straw-man variety – would rather have seen them take up a case where it was “proved” that the only reason they were fired was sexual / identity discrimination.
All this decision will do now is ensure every person terminated who has an LGBTQ claim will sue alleging that was the sole reason. For cause of job performance, down/right sizing, etc., will always be challenged.
I’m rather surprised the SCOTUS didn’t send the case packing with “come back when you have an actual proved (and not alleged) case. This isn’t a round-table discussion where we ponder our navals and pontificate; it’s a court of law.”
Well put. There is b simply no good that can come from this decision.
It’s not that simple. People actively hide these delusions until they are fully employed and under these overarching protections. Then, they start a media frenzy when you refuse to affirm their delusions by paying for gender reassignment surgery.
Gee, I see one small problem: There is no such thing as transgender. There is zero biological evidence for the preposterous idea that (an unlimited) amount of “genders” – that exist where? – somehow trumps biology.
But life goes on in Weimar Germany. My only question is how bad is this country going to get?
It’s arises from mental issues, typically from being assaulted as a child or adult.
Can the Supreme Court allow hiring discrimination based on whether someone will become an HR nightmare? If a “lack of professionalism” for any reason does not violate Title 7, then business is dead.
I’ve spoken to men and women who suffered as children, although being heterosexual, I’m far more interested in the men. It’s a common refrain that although they’re grown men (30, 40, 50, 60, 70), sometimes they feel like they are 8- or 12-years-old. In very inopportune times.
A man could be unable to handle something, and hide it from you. You might never know you had a staffer with a problem, and your business could suffer from a problem you were never able to identify.
This isn’t a blanket statement, because again, people with these issues aren’t made identically in a factory. The circumstances around each man’s trauma and thus its effects, will be different.
Each justice that voted for this should be impeached. Too bad Ryan wasted 2 years of our control.
Apres Trump le deluge.
Transgender spectrum: homo, bi, inter, neo
That said, sex is not gender is sex-correlated physical and mental (e.g. sexual orientation) attributes. Pass a new law, don’t conflate scientifically clear concepts, and don’t share/shift responsibility. Or was this upheld under the Twilight Amendment (e.g. reproductive rites, diversity)?
A sad day for a court appointed by Republicans. First, Roberts started shifting left with Obamacare and now votes against himself (he authored the dissenting opinion on gay marriage). Gorsuch, someone who (I think) was not on the Federalist Society approved originalist list started disappointing from the git go (a much worse writer than Scalia…shockingly opaque at times).
Alito wrote a brilliant and sober dissent of Gorsuch’s sophistry and con game, but even dissenting Kavanaugh felt compelled to write a soap, gushy, praise to a good end even if the means was BS.
Here is a PERFECT example of a cowardly court that is deathly afraid of not being on the side of history, and let the crazy civil unrest turn their brains to sponge.
It was one of worst opinions of the court in the last 20 years…even worse than Obamacare from an intellectual perspective. It’s total crap and should be denounced…assuming their is someone with a spine on the right.
I guess this is why, as a conservative, I can no longer salute the flag to a society and nation that has betrayed our history of liberty.
The Republic has not changed in character. The People, or rather the lawmakers, have established a progressive color.
Will this decision be used to force the military to allow transsexuals to join?
Besides being blatant legislating from the bench — since this ruling in no way even considers original intent — we’re increasingly going into Alice in Wonderland mental gyrations.
1) Homosexuality is not a “sex,” it is an abnormality.
2) Transexuality is not a “sex,” it is a mental disorder.
Further, this ruling is not actually about protecting “LGBTqwerty rights” since those are now “protected” in nearly every state. Rather, on one level it spares Congress having to cast votes teamed Title VII.
More importantly, it’s about expanding the “Overton Window” for deviancies. This ruling just lubricated the slippery slope for legal recognition of polygamy, pedophilia and beastiality.
Eagleton missed his chance for VP. But then we have Joe Biden now who will be the (potentially) the first debilitated President entering office versus those that had problems during such as Wilson and FDR. In the playpen of DC, anything goes.
LOL, Clown world.
If Democrats get elected they will call pedophiles a protected gender and make it illegal to stop them from raping your kids.
Could it be that Gorsuch switched sides to limit the damage ?
I completely agree with the CA5 opinion (phillips perhaps) that held that term sex referred to the biological sex, not sexually orientation or transgender.
Its likely that Roberts was pro sex preference and gorsuch made the switch to reduce the likelihood of a far more progressive opinion.
Though I would have thought that Gorsuch would be more principled.
Don’t excuse Gorsuch. Such a disappointment. Kavanaugh, too, for fawning over brave gays and lesbians. I’m surprised that he didn’t write that some of his best friends are gay.
I happen to agree with almost every Gorsuch opinion and dissent. He got the double jeopardy case correct with only ginsburg siding with him in dissent.
This opinion is totally wrong – the only reason I can fathom Gorsuch going the wrong way is if Roberts was going to assign opinion to Sotomayer or Ginsburg – in which case the ruling would have been much worse. Though getting roberts to assign a highly political to the second least senior justice would take lots of finigalling
This case will be used as support that anyone can use what ever bathroom they feel like using.
It would be discrimination to prevent males from using the women’s bathroom, Correct?
Will it also be used to allow trans athletes to compete in and dominate women’s sports?
It is complete absurd.
lc,
From what I read of the questions asked and the decision itself, at a minimum not yet and probably no.
That’s why I am not too bent out of shape on the substance of the decision. All the court did was apply the logic of non discrimination for factors unrelated to employee performance.
The choice not to use the word ‘gender’ is an important one. The court will face a different fact pattern of legislative intent when they hear a title 9 case. The clear history of title 9 as interpreted for the last three and half decades means offering athletic opportunities in roughly equal measure to males and females; thus the traditional meaning of gender.
That’s why I don’t think the court is going to require another set of opportunities for teams composed of men trans to women and a fourth set of teams composed of women trans to men. That is too burdensome to actually exist.
“Two great sexes animate the world” – Alexander Pope, Paradise Lost
Outrageous and brazen judicial arrogance, capriciousness and narcissism. The actual words of statutes mean nothing, apparently, and, are free to be amended on an ad-hoc basis, by self-aggrandizing federal judges usurping legislators’ roles and powers.
Roberts once again proves himself to be a greasy, malleable, unprincipled and politically expedient Chief Justice of the U.S., more concerned with preserving the Court’s standing in the eyes of public opinion, than he is with law and facts; so, no surprise, there. But, to see Gorsuch join this absurdity is confounding and disappointing.
So in a nutshell SCOTUS creates another protected class. Shouldn’t that me the legislature and the presidents job????
Semantic games, scientific corruption… Technically, everything is legal after the Twilight Amendment established the Progressive Church and Pro-Choice, selective, opportunistic, politically congruent (“=”) religion normalized bigotry (i.e. sanctimonious hypocrisy).
So I can’t fire a guy in my privately-owned business for telling a student skydiver that he won’t grind his woody into her back because he’s a sexual deviant, but I can ban people from my social network for disagreeing with left-wing mythology?
Gorsuch is learning form Roberts. If there is nothing in the law that is to your liking, just make something up and insert it
Taking a statute that never considered such a thing and saying it covers such a thing is legislating from the bench.
Meanwhile, the same Court continues to permit states and municipalities to steal our 2nd Amendment rights.
The Right to keep and bear arms. We keep them in our home, we bear them outside the home.
They’ve stolen a lot more than our 2nd Amendment.
The root of the problem is the do-gooder legislation, the civil rights act itself that tries to micromanage things.
You could have a simple law where people can’t be fired or reasons unrelated to their employment, but that would not be intersectional.
Like the Americans with Disabilities Act that forced a business to build a super clean room bubble because people claimed allergies or sensitivities, or bring there Service Ostrich with them into a restaurant (I cry big fowl!).
There is no good intent that can’t be perverted, in this case literally, by the courts. Because SCOTUS has become imperial, we need a constitutional amendment that allows their decisions to be overridden by the legislature, states, and/or the President. The alternatives are worse.
I don’t believe that the framers of the 14th intended it to apply to the hiring by private companies.
The worst thig to ever happen to America is the 14th Amendment.
This seems more like a reminder memo and a guide to firing an employee than anything else.
“Ours is a society of written laws.”
This is certainly a good time to remind everyone of that, period.
“In Title VII, Congress adopted broad language making it illegal for an employer to rely on an employee’s sex when deciding to fire that employee.”
Clear Reminder to Employers: You will need to rely on a little more than an employee’s sex to get rid of he/she/they.
‘An employer who fires an individual merely for being gay or transgender defies the law.”
Another Clear Reminder to Employers: It’s gotta be a little something more that “merely” to cut he/she/they’s paycheck for good.
So Gorsuch says they can’t ignore the written law while completely ignoring what the written law says. Got it.
Im failing to see why the gnashing of teeth over this one? Being fired for being gay or what ever should be illegal.
Now if a conservative gets fired for being a conservative then bring the court case and be done with it. I think sometimes conservatives need to go some fucking balls and just copy with the pussies on the left are doing and then ram it down their throats like a Sunday morning pickup.
So, Merrick Garland is alive & well, after all.