NCL hails sweeping Supreme Court decision protecting LGBTQ employees

June 19, 2020

Media contact: National Consumers League – Carol McKay, carolm@nclnet.org, (412) 945-3242 or Taun Sterling, tauns@nclnet.org, (202) 207-2832

Washington, DC—With a mission of protecting workers and consumers, the National Consumers League (NCL) applauds the Supreme Court’s landmark employment protection decision this week finding that employment discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation or gender identity is prohibited under federal civil rights law. This statement is attributable to Sally Greenberg, NCL’s executive director:

We are applauding this week’s landmark 6-3 Supreme Court decision finding that the law’s prohibition on sex discrimination in employment extends to those who identify as LGBT (lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender). We commend and thank Justice Neil Gorsuch and his five fellow justices for concluding that ‘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.’ NCL was founded to advocate for the rights of workers to receive decent pay, work in safe conditions and be free from discrimination in the workplace. This decision further extends these critical protections to the LGBT community.

Title VII of the 1964 Civil Rights Act prohibits discrimination in the workplace on the basis of race, religion, national origin and sex. We are pleased that the court found that “sex” is a distinct characteristic but inseparable from the concepts of sexual orientation and gender identity.

The decision is the most significant affirmation of LGBT rights in the United States since the 2015 Supreme Court decision that legalized same-sex marriage and the Court’s first decision addressing transgender civil rights.

Before the decision, LGBT job discrimination was still technically legal in much of the nation. Less than half the states have laws explicitly prohibiting workplace discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation or gender identity. An estimated 11 million Americans identify as LGBT, according to the Williams Institute.

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About the National Consumers League (NCL)

The National Consumers League, founded in 1899, is America’s pioneer consumer organization. Our mission is to protect and promote social and economic justice for consumers and workers in the United States and abroad. For more information, visit www.nclnet.org.