United States Supreme Court Protects LGBT Workers From Discrimination

The United States Supreme Court ruled on June 15, 2020 that the landmark civil rights law of 1964, Title VII, which protects people from discrimination based upon race, religion, national origin and sex protects LGBT workers from workplace discrimination based upon sexual orientation and gender identity.

The vote was 6 to 3, with Justice Neil M. Gorsuch writing the majority opinion. He was joined by Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. and Justices Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Stephen G. Breyer, Sonia Sotomayor and Elena Kagan. Justice Gorsuch wrote “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."

The Court considered several cases to make this ruling.

The holding by the United State Supreme Court concerned Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which Act bars employment discrimination based on race, religion, national origin and sex. The ultimate question for the justices was whether that last prohibition of Title VII — discrimination “because of sex”— applied to many millions of gay and transgender workers.

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