Bostock v. Clayton County | |
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Argued October 8, 2019 Decided June 15, 2020 | |
Full case name | Gerald Lynn Bostock v. Clayton County, Georgia |
Docket no. | 17-1618 |
Citations | 590 U.S. 644 (more) 140 S. Ct. 1731; 207 L. Ed. 2d 218; 2020 WL 3146686; 2020 U.S. LEXIS 3252 |
Argument | Oral argument |
Case history | |
Prior |
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Holding | |
An employer who fires an individual based on their sexual orientation or gender identity violates Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit reversed. | |
Court membership | |
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Case opinions | |
Majority | Gorsuch, joined by Roberts, Ginsburg, Breyer, Sotomayor, Kagan |
Dissent | Alito, joined by Thomas |
Dissent | Kavanaugh |
Laws applied | |
Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 |
Bostock v. Clayton County, 590 U.S. 644 (2020), is a landmark[1] United States Supreme Court civil rights decision in which the Court held that Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 protects employees against discrimination because of sexuality or gender identity.
The plaintiff, Gerald Bostock, was fired from his county job after he expressed interest in a gay softball league at work. The lower courts followed the Eleventh Circuit's past precedent that Title VII did not cover employment discrimination based on sexual orientation. The case was consolidated with Altitude Express, Inc. v. Zarda, a similar case of apparent discrimination due to sexual orientation from the Second Circuit, but which had added to a circuit split. Oral arguments were heard on October 8, 2019, alongside R.G. & G.R. Harris Funeral Homes Inc. v. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, a similar question of Title VII discrimination relating to transgender persons.
On June 15, 2020, the Court ruled in a 6–3 decision covering all three cases that discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation or gender identity is necessarily also discrimination "because of sex" as prohibited by Title VII. According to Justice Neil Gorsuch's majority opinion, that is so because employers discriminating against gay or transgender employees accept a certain conduct (e.g., attraction to women) in employees of one sex but not in employees of the other sex.
The ruling has been hailed as one of the most important legal decisions regarding LGBT rights in the United States, along with Lawrence v. Texas (2003) and Obergefell v. Hodges (2015).[2] Many legal analysts claimed that the case defined Gorsuch as a textualist in statutory interpretation.[3]