On June 4, the Supreme Court voted 7-2 in favor of a Christian Colorado baker and owner of Masterpiece Cakeshop, who had refused to create a custom wedding cake for a gay couple due to his religious objections to gay marriage.
Although the case previously had been litigated on free speech grounds, the Court’s opinion largely avoids this constitutional question, and does not address whether Title VII prohibits discrimination based on sexual orientation. Instead, the decision focuses on the Colorado Civil Rights Commission’s decision finding against Masterpiece Cakeshop and ...
The first quarter of 2018 has already stirred up an array of legal matters that employers in the hospitality industry should be conscious of, both in their day-to-day operations and long-term planning. In February alone, the U.S. House of Representatives passed legislation to curb lawsuits focused on the inaccessibility of brick-and-mortar business establishments and a federal appeals court ruled that discrimination based on sexual orientation violates Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 (“Title VII”). Earlier this month, the U.S. Department of Labor announced a ...
On March 26, the General Counsel (“GC”) of the NLRB signaled that he will be asking the Board to overturn or modify many precedents that negatively impact unions when it comes to organizing and collective bargaining. In Memorandum GC 16-01 (“GC Memo”), the GC directed the Regional Directors in the Board’s offices across the country, who are charged with investigating unfair labor practice (“ULP”) charges and deciding which cases to take to trial, to forward all charges involving issues identified in the GC Memo to the GC’s Division of Advice (“Advice”). It is ...
In the wake of several high-profile wins for the LGBT community, the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (“EEOC”) added employment discrimination protection to the list. On July 16, 2015, the EEOC ruled that discrimination against employees based on sexual orientation is prohibited by Title VII of the 1964 Civil Rights Act of 1964 (“Title VII”) as discrimination based on sex.
The EEOC held that “[s]exual orientation discrimination is sex discrimination because it necessarily entails treating an employee less favorably because of the employee’s sex.” ...
My colleagues Nancy L. Gunzenhauser, Kate B. Rhodes, and Judah L. Rosenblatt at Epstein Becker Green have a Retail Labor and Employment Law blog post concerning a recent EEOC modification to employment discrimination protection: “EEOC Rules Discrimination Based On Sexual Orientation Illegal Under Title VII.”
Following is an excerpt:
The EEOC held that “[s]exual orientation discrimination is sex discrimination because it necessarily entails treating an employee less favorably because of the employee’s sex.” The EEOC noted that sex-based considerations also ...
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