Saks Fifth Avenue and Transgender Rights

2018 ◽  
pp. 1-14
Author(s):  
Timothy Feddersen
Keyword(s):  
Civil Rights ◽  
Gender Identity ◽  
Equal Employment Opportunity Commission ◽  
Sex Discrimination ◽  
Federal District ◽  
Federal Court ◽  
Title Vii ◽  
Federal State ◽  
Team Members ◽  
Executive Team

In September 2014 Leyth Jamal, a transgender woman, filed suit against her employer, luxury retailer Saks Fifth Avenue. Jamal alleged that she experienced harassment from managers and other employees because of her gender identity while employed by Saks, including verbal abuse and threats of violence. At the time she filed suit, no federal, state, or local laws protected transgender employees from discrimination. However, some federal district courts had recently begun to allow such suits on the premise that discrimination based on gender identity was a form of sex discrimination. Other suits and amicus briefs brought by the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) furthered this trend. The EEOC is the federal agency charged with investigating and supporting claims of discrimination under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, so district and appellate courts watched the EEOC's position on the application of Title VII. Socio-culturally, many Americans supported transgender rights, even as they voiced anxiety about transgender men in women's bathrooms. This case has students assume the role of a trusted member of the executive team of Hudson's Bay Company, which owns Saks Fifth Avenue. One Friday afternoon in late December 2014, the Hudson's Bay CEO sends an email to his executive team notifying them that he has approved corporate counsel's motion to dismiss Jamal's case based on the argument that transgender people are not a protected class according to Title VII. The motion will be filed in federal court on Monday. The CEO shares that he personally believes it is preposterous for anyone to think that Saks Fifth Avenue is anything but a strong advocate for LGBT rights, but he invites executive team members to call him if they have any concerns. Members of the executive team have a responsibility to consider the broader strategic implications for the company, so students must decide if and how to respond to the CEO.

Transgender Discrimination And The Law

2010 ◽  
Vol 3 (2) ◽  
pp. 55 ◽  
Author(s):  
Richard Trotter
Keyword(s):  
Sexual Orientation ◽  
Civil Rights ◽  
Gender Identity ◽  
Legal Status ◽  
Sex Discrimination ◽  
Title Vii ◽  
Human Resource Managers ◽  
Transgendered People ◽  
Resource Managers ◽  
Transgender Discrimination

An emerging area of law is developing regarding sex/gender identity discrimination, also referred to as transgender discrimination, as distinguished from discrimination based on sexual orientation.  A transgendered individual is defined as “a person who has a gender-identity disorder which is a persistent discomfort about one’s assigned sex or a sense of belonging to the other sex.’  While Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 or it amendments do not provide protection from discrimination for individuals based on sexual orientation, transgender, or transvestites, there are a growing number of state, cities, and counties with transgender explicit non-discrimination laws.  In addition to the above private employers, colleges and universities and collective bargaining agreements prohibit discrimination against transgendered people.  While Title VII does not protect transgendered people, some federal courts have broadly interpreted Title VII’s prohibitation against sex discrimination as including transgendered people on the basis  of the concept of “sex stereotyping” as a form of sex discrimination protected by Title VII.  Additionally, the state courts of Massachusetts and New Jersey have held that transsexual people are protected under state disability laws.  Human Resource Managers need to be sensitive to issues that can arise as a result of an employee making a sex change transition with respect to the following: 1) bathroom and dressing room usage; 2) dress codes; 3) identification and records changes; and (4) health benefits.  Additionally, the transgendered employee, supervisory management and coworkers each have responsibilities to see that the transgendered transition is done respecting the rights of all concerned.  As to the future, legal status of transgendered employees, transgender advocates should seek to change the existing laws; and if the existing law has sexual orientation protection, these laws should be written in such a way as to expressly include transgendered individuals.  Additionally, transgender advocates should seek the voluntary cooperation of employers.

scholarly journals 'Sex' and Religion after Bostock

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sachin S. Pandya ◽  
Marcia McCormick
Keyword(s):  
Civil Rights ◽  
First Amendment ◽  
Religious Freedom ◽  
Employment Discrimination ◽  
Sex Discrimination ◽  
Title Vii ◽  
Lower Court ◽  
Civil Rights Act ◽  
Employer Discrimination ◽  
The U.S

This paper reviews the U.S. Supreme Court’s opinion in Bostock v. Clayton County (2020). There, the Court held that by barring employer discrimination against any individual “because of such individual’s . . . sex,” Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 also bars employment discrimination because an individual is gay or transgender. The paper then speculates about how much Bostock will affect how likely lower court judges will read other “sex” discrimination prohibitions in the U.S. Code in the same way, in part based on a canvass of the text of about 150 of those prohibitions. The paper also discusses the religion-based defenses that defendants may raise in response under Title VII itself, the Religious Freedom Restoration Act, and the First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution.

Defining sex-based discrimination among strife between the Justice Department and the EEOC

2019 ◽  
Vol 19 (3-4) ◽  
pp. 200-215
Author(s):  
Kelsey R Ruszkowski
Keyword(s):  
Sexual Orientation ◽  
Supreme Court ◽  
Equal Employment Opportunity Commission ◽  
Sex Discrimination ◽  
Title Vii ◽  
Justice Department ◽  
The Supreme Court ◽  
Lgbt Community ◽  
And Gender ◽  
Supreme Court Rulings

In the last few decades, US Supreme Court rulings have made strides for the advancement of the LGBT community. However, this community has yet to enjoy equality in the workplace due to its exclusion from Title VII protection. This article details the recent conflict between the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) and the Department of Justice in interpreting Title VII and how this conflict may make it difficult for the Supreme Court to reach a broad ruling concerning sex discrimination under Title VII. The EEOC relies on Supreme Court precedent concerning sex stereotyping to extend Title VII protection to sexual orientation while the Justice Department employs a textualist argument to support a narrow interpretation of sex. However, changing societal norms and advancing neuroscientific research support the conclusion that sexual orientation, gender identity, and expression is included under “sex” even when using textualism to interpret Title VII. Given that the Supreme Court is unlikely to defer to the EEOC’s interpretation, these arguments stemming from the social sciences may provide the support the Court needs to justify a decision to end employment discrimination against the LGBT community and gender nonconformists in a way that is consistent with the positions of both the EEOC and the Justice Department.

Boureslan v. Aramco

1989 ◽  
Vol 83 (2) ◽  
pp. 375-380
Author(s):  
Marialuisa S. Gallozzi
Keyword(s):  
Civil Rights ◽  
International Law ◽  
Equal Employment Opportunity Commission ◽  
Equal Employment Opportunity ◽  
Title Vii ◽  
Legislative History ◽  
Civil Rights Act ◽  
Court Of Appeals ◽  
History Of ◽  
The U.S

Plaintiff, a United States citizen employed in Saudi Arabia, brought an employment discrimination suit against defendant, a U.S. corporation, alleging violations of title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 (42 U.S.C. §2000e (1982)). The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit affirmed (per Davis, J.) the district court’s dismissal of the suit for lack of subject matter jurisdiction and held (two to one): (1) that neither the language nor the legislative history of title VII evinces a clearly expressed congressional intent to apply title VII outside U.S. borders; (2) that in the absence of clearly expressed congressional intent to the contrary, the presumption against extraterritoriality controls; and (3) that no “negative inference” extending the reach of title VII should be drawn from its “alien exemption” provision. Judge King’s dissent discussed international law principles not addressed by the majority. The Fifth Circuit subsequently granted on December 23, 1988, the petition for rehearing en banc submitted by plaintiff and various amici, including the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC).

scholarly journals The Scientific Gaze in American Transgender Politics: Contesting the Meanings of Sex, Gender, and Gender Identity in the Bathroom Rights Cases

2018 ◽  
Vol 15 (2) ◽  
pp. 336-360 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jo Wuest
Keyword(s):  
Civil Rights ◽  
Gender Identity ◽  
Political Identity ◽  
Civil Liberties ◽  
Federal Court ◽  
Transgender Identity ◽  
And Gender ◽  
The Right ◽  
Gloucester County ◽  
American Civil Liberties Union

AbstractIn this article, I examine how conflicts over transgender bathroom rights have ignited debates concerning the fundamental nature of transgender identity. Through an institutional and discursive analysis of North Carolina's House Bill 2 or “bathroom bill,” the Title IX case inGloucester County School Board v. G. G.,and similar federal court cases, I explore how and why forces both on the right and in the LGBTQ movement have come to rely on scientific expertise to legitimate their conceptions. As conservatives have marshaled evidence to challenge notions that transgender identity is innate, LGBTQ and transgender organizations as well as the American Civil Liberties Union have crafted a “born this way” biopolitical construction of transgender identity. I find that at their core, these conflicts are over the meanings of gender and sex in relation to transgender identity. Conservatives posit sex as biologically rooted and gender as a psychological phenomenon, whereas transgender advocates subsume gender identity into the definition of sex in arguing that constitutional and federal civil rights law must recognize gender identity as a biologically constitutive element of sex. I conclude by noting the limits of a liberal assimilationist and litigation-centric transgender politics and by exploring alternatives to this biopolitical form of transgender political identity.

scholarly journals Countenancing Employment Discrimination

2020 ◽  
Vol 8 (1) ◽  
pp. 63-88
Author(s):  
Kerri A. Thompson
Keyword(s):  
Civil Rights ◽  
Facial Recognition ◽  
Equal Employment Opportunity Commission ◽  
Class Action ◽  
Title Vii ◽  
Data Sets ◽  
Employment Decisions ◽  
Background Checks ◽  
Impact Theory ◽  
Enforcement Authority

Employing facial recognition technology implicates anti-discrimination law under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act when used as a factor in employment decisions. The very technological breakthroughs that made facial recognition technology commercially viable—data compression and artificial intelligence— also contribute to making facial recognition technology discriminatory in its effect on members of classes protected by Title VII. This Article first explains how facial recognition technology works and its application in employee background checks. Then, it analyzes whether the use of facial recognition technology in background checks violates Title VII under the disparate impact theory of liability due to the known issue of skewed data sets and disproportionate inaccuracy on some populations. The Article concludes by calling on the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission to issue specific guidance warning employers of impending liability under Title VII, including class action liability, due to the use of facial recognition technology, and to use its enforcement authority to file lawsuits against employers who continue to use the technology.

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