Tuesday October 8th, the Supreme Court questioned the protection of gay and transgender discrimination in the workplace. There is no law preventing the LGBTQ+ community from being fired based on their identity. The justices heard two hours of testimonies and arguments for three cases in which two gay workers and one transgender worker were fired by their employers. The three workers sued, claiming the action was an act of unlawful discrimination.
The court’s liberal justices agreed with the arguments that gay and transgender workers are protected by Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. The law bans employers from discrimination against their employees in the instance of sex, race, color, nationality, and religion. Some justices appeared skeptical while others sympathized with the plaintiffs’ claims.
Conservative Justice Neil Gorsuch implied that one’s sex sometimes contributes to the factor of firing someone of a certain sexual orientation. Gorsuch says, “in what linguistic formulation would one say that sex - biological gender - has nothing to do with what happened in this case?” In turn, he later suggested that the court might be overstepping its boundaries and should just leave it to Congress to legislate on the subject; saying it would cause a “massive social upheaval.”
The Trump Administration argued that Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 does not include sexual orientation or gender identity. A legal fight back in 2015, focused on the meaning of “sex” in Title VII. Plaintiffs argued that consequently, discrimination against workers who are gay or transgender is illegal. Liberal justices seemed to appear skeptical of the arguments made by the Trump Administration’s lawyer. Supporters of LGBTQ+ rights, protested outside the courthouse while, a smaller group of opposing members, stood there too. Ruling in favor of the plaintiffs would give gay and transgender workers better protection and a ruling against them would mean that those workers would not be protected and still be subject to the discriminatory treatment of their employers.
Read this article and answer the following questions.
1) on the evidence given in the article, do you believe the justices will rule in favor of the plaintiffs or not? Explain.
2) Which justice’s argument do you agree with the most and why?
3) Has there ever been an instance when you have been treated unfairly? When and why do you think it happened to you?
4) If the law is upheld then how do you think it will affect our community in the long run? And if it isn’t?
