Abstract
These cases ask whether Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 outlaws employment discrimination against LGBT citizens. One case focuses on a private company who fired an employee for being gay; a second case on a public employer doing the same; and the third case a private company firing a transgender employee. The debate revolves around the meaning of the word “sex” in Title VII, originally intended in 1964 to outlaw employment discrimination against women. Over fifty years later, does the same phrase encompass sexual orientation and identity, or does such a change require an explicit act of Congress? The chapter discusses the role of textualism in the interpretation of congressional laws and the implications for LGBT rights
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Notes
- 1.
Zarda v. Altitude Express, Inc., 883 F.3d 100 (2018).
- 2.
Equal Employment Opportunity Commission v. R. G. & G. R. Harris Funeral Homes, Inc., No. 16–2424 (6th Cir. 2018).
- 3.
Bostock v. Clayton County (N.D. Georgia, 2016) at 3–4.
- 4.
Bostock v. Clayton County Board of Commissioners, No. 17–13801 (11th Cir. 2018).
- 5.
Trudy Ring, “Fired After Joining a Gay Softball Team, This Man Is Fighting Back,” The Advocate (4 October 2019).
- 6.
Jo Freeman, “How Sex Got into Title VII: Persistent Opportunism as a Maker of Public Policy,” Law & Inequality: A Journal of Theory and Practice 9, no. 2 (n.d.): 175.
- 7.
“Title VII,” Pub. L. No. 88–352, title VII, § 703 (1964).
- 8.
Jennifer Woodward, “Making Rights Work: Legal Mobilization at the Agency Level,” Law and Society Review 49, no. 3 (2015): 703.
- 9.
Phillips v. Martin Marietta Corporation, 400 U.S. 542 (1971).
- 10.
429 U.S. 190 (1976).
- 11.
Geduldig v. Aiello, 417 U.S. 484 (1974); General Elec. Co. v. Gilbert, 429 U.S. 125 (1976).
- 12.
City of Los Angeles Dep’t of Water & Power v. Manhart, 435 U.S. 702 (1978).
- 13.
“Pregnancy Discrimination Act,” Pub. L. No. 95–555 (1978).
- 14.
Augustus Cochran III, Sexual Harassment and the Law: The Mechelle Vinson Case (Lawrence, KS: University Press of Kansas, 2004).
- 15.
Price Waterhouse v. Hopkins, 490 U.S. 228 (1989).
- 16.
William Eskridge, “Title VII’s Statutory History and the Sex Discrimination Argument for LGBT Workplace Protections,” Yale Law Journal 127 (2017): 336.
- 17.
Ibid. at 353.
- 18.
Ulane v. Eastern Airlines, 742 F.2d 1081 (7th Cir. 1984).
- 19.
Jack Harrison, “Because of Sex,” Loyola L.A. Law Review 51 (2018): 111–112.
- 20.
Oncale v. Sundowner Offshore Services, Inc., 523 U.S. 75 (1998).
- 21.
Lawrence v. Texas, 539 U.S. 558 (2003); Obergefell v. Hodges, 576 U.S. 644 (2015).
- 22.
“Preventing Discrimination Against Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual or Transgender Workers,” Title VII, 29 CFR 1601, 29 CFR Part 1614 § (2014).
- 23.
Bostock decision, page 15.
- 24.
Ibid. at 4, 5–6.
- 25.
Ibid. at 10.
- 26.
Ibid. at 11.
- 27.
Ibid. at 14–15.
- 28.
Ibid. at 28.
- 29.
Ibid. at 31.
- 30.
Alito dissent, page 1.
- 31.
Ibid. at 3.
- 32.
Ibid. at 8–9.
- 33.
Ibid. at 45, 53–54.
- 34.
Bostock decision, page 32.
- 35.
Ibid. at 32.
- 36.
Burwell v. Hobby Lobby Stores, 573 U.S. 661 (2014); Masterpiece Cakeshop, Ltd. v. Colorado Civil Rights Commission, 584 U.S. (2018); Espinoza v. Montana Department of Revenue, 591 U.S. (2020). See Chapter 5 on Espinoza.
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Novkov, J. (2021). Bostock v. Clayton County on LGBT Employment Discrimination. In: Marietta, M. (eds) SCOTUS 2020. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-53851-4_2
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