Civil Rights Law Protects LGBTQ Workers

Hello, my name is Nicholas Kennedy, and I am an employee and discrimination rights attorney here at QuatriniRafferty. Today I’m very excited to talk to you about a recent Supreme Court decision that announced that workers are protected against discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity.

Now, this landmark decision was announced by a 6-3 vote of the United States Supreme Court. It’s very important because this was an issue that was in debate and it was unsettled in the court system. And we’re excited for what it means for our clients. Before I get into that, I want to talk about a little bit of background for Title 7. Title 7 is a federal anti-discrimination law, and Title 7 prohibits discrimination by employers who have 15 or more employees based on certain categories. Those categories include race, religion, national origin, and, in this situation and what’s most important about this case, is sex. And there are other categories as well, but I want to focus on that one today.

There was a debate in the courts about what “sex” meant and there were a lot of cases challenging whether sexual orientation and gender identify were included in that. This is important because many states do not have a separate law that prohibits discrimination in the workplace based on sexual orientation and gender identity. And today the Supreme Court took a massive step to announce the protection of those categories of discrimination. So, what this means for our clients is they have a whole new area of protection and that’s exciting for us and we look forward to asserting the rights of our clients who believe they are being discriminated against based on sexual orientation and gender identity.

So if you face any sort of discrimination, whether it be the loss of a job, the loss of a promotion, if you believe that you are being paid less, if you are facing a hostile work environment that you believe is related to your sexual orientation or gender identity, please give us a call. We look forward to helping you. We’re excited that this decision came out and what it means for the rights of workers in this country. Thank you.