Sex Discrimination - Orientation And Identity

On February 26, 2018, a majority of the entire U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit held, in Zarda v. Altitude Express Inc., that Title VII prohibits workplace discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation. With this ruling, the Second Circuit becomes the second federal appellate court t

Executive Summary: As previously reported by these authors, on July 26, 2017, President Trump announced via Twitter that transgender individuals will no longer be permitted to serve in the military. President Trump issued an official memorandum (“the memorandum”) on August 25, 2017, reasserting the

On October 4, 2017, Attorney General Jeff Sessions reversed the Department of Justice’s position that gender identity is protected as part of Title VII of the Civil Rights Act’s prohibition against sex discrimination — taking a position that is contrary to current guidance from the Equal Employment

Executive Summary: Whether Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 prohibits discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation, gender identity, transgender status and/or gender expression remains a heated debate in the courts and between government agencies. In the latest development, on October

Last week, on Wednesday July 26, 2017, the United States Department of Justice (DOJ) filed an amicus brief in a Second Circuit case taking the position that Title VII does not protect employees against sexual orientation discrimination.

Executive Summary: On July 26, 2017, President Trump announced via Twitter that the military, arguably the country’s largest employer, will no longer allow transgender people to serve, thus breaking from the Obama Administration’s lift of the transgender ban and setting off a firestorm of controvers

Executive Summary: On March 10, 2017, in Evans v. Georgia Regional Hospital, a split panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit held that it was bound by prior precedent that Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 does not prohibit sexual orientation discrimination. The majority

Department of Education regional directors have been given new instructions on sex discrimination protections for transgender students under Title IX of the Education Act of 1972. Two updated, internal Office of Civil Rights (OCR) guidance documents outline changes to the appropriate scope of OCR in

Executive Summary: On May 30, 2017, on the heels of the Seventh Circuit’s ground-breaking en banc decision in Hively v. Ivy Tech. College holding that sexual orientation is a protected trait under Title VII, a unanimous three-judge panel of that Circuit upheld an injunction requiring a Wisconsin sch

On May 30, 2017, the Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that a transgender student has the right to use the bathroom that aligns with his gender identity in Whitaker v. Kenosha Unified School District No. 1 Board of Education, et al. This ruling is potentially groundbreaking, and could open the

Executive Summary: While the Seventh Circuit definitively has held that sexual orientation discrimination is discrimination “because of sex” and, therefore, a violation of Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, as amended (as reported by these authors on April 25, 2017), the other Circuits conti

Executive Summary: On April 3, 2017, in Christiansen v. Omnicom Group, Inc., the Second Circuit held that it was bound by prior precedent in ruling that Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 does not prohibit sexual orientation discrimination. On the tails of the Seventh Circuit’s en banc decisi

Executive Summary: In a landmark decision overruling decades of precedent, the Seventh Circuit en banc declared that sexual orientation discrimination violates Title VII in Hively v. Ivy Tech Community College. This comes as the first decision of its kind. The Seventh Circuit’s decision was followed

Observing that it would require “considerable calisthenics” to remove “sex” from “sexual orientation,” the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit, in Chicago, has ruled that “discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation is a form of sex discrimination” and unlawful under Title VII of the

On April 4, 2017, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit held in Hively v. Ivy Tech Community College of Indiana that discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation is a form of sex discrimination under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. This is the first time a federal appella

Executive Summary: As these authors have previously reported, several cases analyzing whether sexual orientation is protected by Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 have been winding their way through the courts. The Eleventh Circuit, in Evans v. Georgia Regional Hospital, and the Second Circu

Dear Littler: We have a transgender employee at work, Sarah, who identifies and presents as a female. She is in the process of transitioning and still occasionally exhibits traditionally “male” physical attributes. A client of ours recently noticed that Sarah appeared to have a “five o’clock shadow”

Cindy-Ann Thomas, Littler Principal and Co-chair of the firm’s EEO and Diversity Practice Group, and Dr. Thomas Robertson, Chief Psychologist at Jackson Behavioral Health Hospital, discuss how the transgender patient population in healthcare is one of the most highly victimized groups.

Now that the Trump administration has lifted the Obama administration’s guidance directing schools to allow transgender students to use the bathroom consistent with their gender identity, employers and school administrators face a period of significant uncertainty regarding transgender individuals a

The Trump Administration has announced that the Department of Education (DOE) and the Department of Justice (DOJ) rescinded the Obama Administration’s May 2016 Dear Colleague Letter directing that schools “treat a student’s gender identity as the student’s sex for purposes of Title IX and its implem