Employee Survival Guide® - Supreme Court Says Sex Discrimination Includes Homosexuality and Transgender Statuts

Starting point is 00:00:00 Welcome to another edition of the Employee Survival Guide, where you can learn everything your employer does not want you to know about, and more. Now, here's Attorney Mark Carey. The Supreme Court just issued a groundbreaking decision making it unlawful for employers to discriminate on the basis of a person's sexuality or gender identity. About half the states already have laws protecting LGBTQ employees, but this decision extends employment rights to all LGBT folks in America and opens the federal courts to them. In this quarantine period, the Bostick decision is certainly something to celebrate. On the day the Bostick case was being argued, we predicted the now historic outcome in an article stating, quote, the court will hold that sexual orientation discrimination and discrimination based upon transgender status

Starting point is 00:00:50 constitutes sex discrimination under Title VII of the 1964 Civil Rights Act. Because adverse employment decisions discriminating against the LGBTQ community are being made, quote, because of sex of the employee, end quote. Honestly, there was only one direction the Bostick holding could go, granting protected status under Title VII. The decision is monumental and unpredictable for several reasons. First, it provides equal treatment to LGBTQ employees and their employment and provides tools to fight against employment discrimination. Sexual orientation carries as equal a significance as race, national origin, and religion under Title VII. Second, the Supreme Court's decision demonstrates what we have been complaining about for a

Starting point is 00:01:37 long time. Employment law is not political and should not be politicized. Employment law is bipartisan and protects everyone. Here, conservative justices Gorsuch and Roberts join with the court's liberal wing, Bader Ginsburg, Breyer, Sotomayor, and Kagan to expand Title VII protections to a whole new class of employees. We are all equal under Title VII, contrary to current popular media depiction that as a country we are inherently unequal and divided during this election season. The Bostick decision actually involves three separate cases with almost identical facts and different outcomes. Frankly, advocates could not have dreamed up the perfect test cases for securing LGBTQ employment rights if they tried.

Starting point is 00:02:26 test cases for securing LGBTQ employee employment rights if they tried. They each involved long-term employees who were fired from their jobs after their employers learned they were homosexual or transgender, and for no other reason. They involved both public and private employers. Jared Bostick worked for Clayton County, Georgia, as a child welfare advocate for more than a decade. The county won national awards for the work he did leading the department. When influential members of the community made disparaging remarks about Mr. Bostick's participation in a gay softball league, he was fired for conduct unbecoming a county employee. The 11th Circuit dismissed the case,

Starting point is 00:02:59 holding that Title VII to the Civil Rights Act does not prohibit employers from firing employees for being gay. Donald Zarda was a skydiving instructor with Altitude Express in New York. After several years with the company, Mr. Zarda mentioned to a female student that he was, quote, 100% gay, to allay any discomfort she may have felt about their tandem jump. She was going to be extremely close to Mr. Zarda, strapped to the front of his body. Days later, he was fired. The 2nd Circuit Court of Appeals held that Title VII prohibited employers from firing an employee for being gay. Mr. Zarda died before his case reached the Supreme Court, and his estate continued his legal battle. Amy Stevens worked for RG and GR Harris Funeral Homes in Garden City, Michigan, for six years. During her tenure, she presented as male.

Starting point is 00:03:47 When she informed her employer that she planned to live and work full-time as a woman, upon her return from an upcoming vacation, the funeral home fired her, saying, This is not going to work out. The Sixth Circuit's decision was consistent with the Second Circuit. Title VII prohibited employers from firing an employee for being transgender. Ms. Stevens died last month, yet her estate carried her fight to fruition. Justice Gorsuch, who wrote the opinion of the 6-3 decision, wrote,

Starting point is 00:04:14 An employer violates Title VII when it intentionally fires an individual employee based in part on sex. It doesn't matter if other factors besides the plaintiff's sex contributed to the decision, and it doesn't matter if other factors besides the plaintiff's sex contributed to the decision, and it doesn't matter if the employer treated women as a group the same when compared to men as a group. If the employer intentionally relies in part on the 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. Title VII's message is simple, but momentous. An individual employee's sex is not

Starting point is 00:04:51 relevant to the selection, evaluation, or compensation of employees. An individual's homosexuality or transgender status is not relevant to employment decisions. That's because it is impossible to discriminate against a person for being homosexual or transgender without discriminating against that individual based on sex. At bottom, these cases involve no more than straightforward application of legal terms with plain and settled meanings. For an employer to discriminate against the employees for being homosexual or transgender, the employer must intentionally discriminate against individual men and women in part because of sex. That has always been prohibited by Title VII's plain terms, and that should be the end of the analysis.

Starting point is 00:05:31 End quote. If you are an LGBTQ employee and believe you are experiencing unfair treatment at work, we have the following strategies your employer may not want you to know about. First, very quietly write down your factual narrative in a chronological order on a computer you do not use or access for work. Writing out your story is part of the investigative process that lawyers use to determine liability and how we advise our clients. If you are getting the sense you are being set up for a performance improvement plan, so-called PIP, or termination, your employer and their employment attorneys are already examining

Starting point is 00:06:06 and trying to control your factual narrative, but they will never tell you that. Second, quietly gather all offending and supportive emails, text messages, Slack messages, etc., and preserve them. The contents of these documents should appear in your factual narrative in some form. Third, do not tell your supervisor or HR that you have potential claims until you speak to an employment attorney in our office or anywhere. Your supervisor and HR personnel do not represent you and work only against you on behalf of the employer. They will always deny this fact. Third, you need to decide if you are going to remain employed or seek a severance package from the employer.

Starting point is 00:06:49 As attorneys, we have an obligation to keep you employed for as long as possible for our income purposes. More importantly, you may be able to gather corroborating or direct evidence of discrimination by remaining employed. Your employer will not predict you are secretly investigating them and trying to set them up. Yes, you can do that. Fourth, you never want to quit your job as you cannot collect unemployment benefits and it is more difficult to demonstrate a constructive discharge on any type of discrimination or wrongful termination case. Fifth, if we put your case together, we will then place the employer on notice that it is discriminating against you because of your sexual orientation and attempt to negotiate your exit package. Sixth and final,

Starting point is 00:07:24 of your sexual orientation and attempt to negotiate your exit package. Sixth and final, avoid litigation at all costs due to the expense and the time involved. Yes, lawyers do give that sort of advice and we do it every day. Thank you for listening to the Employee Survival Guide and good luck.

Employee Survival Guide® - Supreme Court Says Sex Discrimination Includes Homosexuality and Transgender Statuts

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