US Supreme Court rules LGBTQ+ employees are protected by Title VII
On Monday, June 15, 2020, the Supreme Court of the United States (SCOTUS) ruled that sexual orientation and gender identity are protected characteristics of Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964.
Bostock v. Clayton County (17-1618)
An employer who fires an individual merely for being gay or transgender violates Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964.
The 6-3 opinion, authored by Justice Neil Gorsuch, is an incredible development in the history of LGBTQ+ rights.
"An employer who fires an individual for being homosexual or transgender fires that person for traits or actions it would not have questioned in members of a different sex. Sex plays a necessary and undisguisable role in the decision, exactly what Title VII forbids," Gorsuch wrote. “If the employer intentionally relies in part on an individual employee’s sex when deciding to discharge the employee—put differently, if changing the employee’s sex would have yielded a different choice by the employer—a statutory violation has occurred,” he wrote.
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Sources: SupremeCourt.gov; CNN; CNBC; CBS News