WASHINGTON - The U.S. Supreme Court ruled on Monday that federal employment laws prohibit discrimination against LGBTQ workers, delivering a major victory to sexual minorities in America.
In a 6-3 decision, the court ruled that that an “employer who fires an individual merely for being gay or transgender” in in violation of Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964.
Conservative Chief Justice John Roberts and fellow conservative Neil Gorsuch, who was appointed to the bench by President Donald Trump, joined the majority opinion.
The civil rights law says that employers cannot discriminate “because of sex.”
In 2015, the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, under the Obama administration, ruled that the prohibition encompassed discrimination against LGBTQ (lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, questioning) people.
However, the Trump administration sided with employers who were sued for discrimination in three cases that led to Monday’s ruling.
In two of the cases – Bostock v. Clayton County and Altitude Express v. Zarda – the question was whether Title VII of the 1964 Civil Rights Act prohibition on sex discrimination extends to sexual orientation. Gerald Bostock, a social worker, and Donald Zarda, a skydiving instructor, claimed they were fired because they are gay.
In the third case – R.G. & G.R. Harris Funeral Homes Inc. v. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission – the justices were asked to determine whether Title VII’s ban on sex discrimination covers transgender people. The transgender woman at the center of the case, Aimee Stephens, says she lost her funeral director's job because of her identity.