Washington, DC—Today the Supreme Court of the United States issued a landmark decision concerning the rights of LGBTQ+ Americans in the workplace.  In a 6-3 decision, the Court held that Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 protects all workers – including lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and non-gay Americans from being fired because of their sexual orientation or gender identity. 

Last July, Dentons filed a significant amicus brief with the Supreme Court in the case representing nearly 40 former government officials involved in shaping and enforcing civil rights law, including former senior leaders of the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC), the Department of Education, the Department of Health and Human Services, the Department of Justice, the Department of Labor and other agencies.

“The ruling today enshrines legal protections nationwide for LGBTQ+ Americans, at a time when the fight to make our nation more inclusive and equitable is being contested as vigorously as ever,” said Mike McNamara, Dentons US CEO. “I congratulate Evan Wolfson and our team for their contributions to this extraordinary achievement affirming American civil rights law. Today’s decision and Dentons’ role in advocating for this outcome for LGBTQ+ Americans speaks to the finest traditions of action within our Firm.”

New York senior counsel Evan Wolfson, an internationally recognized civil rights lawyer widely acknowledged as the architect of the marriage equality movement, and San Diego partner Peter Stockburger have led the team in this year long-effort, along with Washington, DC, managing associates Jasmine Fisher and David Mayhall and San Francisco associate Justin Klingenberg. The brief argued, in defense of wrongly fired plaintiffs:

“The decisions reached by the EEOC and others—that Title VII’s prohibition of the ‘entire spectrum’ of sex discrimination encompasses discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation and gender identity, including transgender status—were the product of long, careful, and conscientious study and independent consideration across multiple agencies. These deliberate determinations have been embraced and amplified by numerous courts, including several en banc Circuits, and are coherent and correct as a matter of law.”

“Today’s Supreme Court decision builds on the common sense reality that you can’t even spell ‘sexual orientation” without “sex” and that the law cannot be ‘as a man fit, as a woman fired. There is no gay exception or trans exclusion to the Civil Rights Act,” said Wolfson.  “We all need good news these days – and that this decision was issued during Pride Month makes it especially meaningful for millions of Americans and others worldwide, and for our Firm.”

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