Home News Franken, Ellison, McCollum file brief urging courts to add sexual orientation to Civil Rights Act

Franken, Ellison, McCollum file brief urging courts to add sexual orientation to Civil Rights Act

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Franken, Ellison, McCollum file brief urging courts to add sexual orientation to Civil Rights Act
David Iliff, Wikipedia Commons
David Iliff, Wikipedia Commons
David Iliff, Wikipedia Commons

Sen. Al Franken, and Reps. Keith Ellison and Betty McCollum are among 128 members of Congress urging a New York Court to rule that discrimination based on sexual orientation is a violation of the 1964 Civil Rights Act.

The case, Christiansen v. Omnicom Group Inc., hinges on alleged harassment of a gay man by a supervisor at an Omnicom marketing subsidiary.

Matthew Christiansen’s lawyers have argued that Title VII of the 1964 Civil Rights Act, which covers discrimination in employment, should cover sexual orientation. That argument was rejected by a federal judge in New York, and the Second Circuit Court of Appeals will hear the case (they’ll already heard it once, but will hear it again. Those details can be read here).

“Different interpretations of Title VII have led to uncertainty in the workplace and left LGBT Americans inconsistently protected from workplace harassment and discrimination, despite applicable federal law,” the Congress members wrote in the amicus brief. “We firmly believe that Title VII’s sex discrimination provision already prohibits discrimination based on an individual’s sexual orientation and gender identity, and we urge the Court to overrule erroneous Second Circuit precedent to the contrary.”

They continued, “To hold that sexual orientation does not fall under ‘sex’ in Title VII flies in the face of common sense, the understanding of more than 200 bipartisan members of the House and Senate who have cosponsored the Equality Act and the position taken by the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission and other federal circuits. Sexual orientation cannot be understood without reference to a person’s sex, so any instance of discrimination based on sexual orientation must be rooted in impermissible sex-based considerations.”

[gview file=”http://thecolu.mn/wp-content/uploads/2016/07/File-Stamped-Copy-Amicus-Brief.pdf”]

1 COMMENT

  1. Franken, Ellison, McCollum
    How about here in Minnesota, with the City of Minneapolis Public Housing Administration, allowing Transgender discrimination, and abetting it by not following Minnesota, and HUD rules, for Transgender people’s protection.. This has gone on for over ten months and no ownership is shown as to facing up to their duties on this subject. This being applicable to the past building manager, the Property Manager and even the CEO of MPHA for not returning any calls to address this lack of interest of following a law as written by the government that controls them. How about taking care of problems here in Minneapolis with a public department that is Ignorant of these rules or because of plain old Bigotry wants, and to not follow them.

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