On April 2, 2024, Governor Kim Reynolds signed Senate File 2095, the Iowa Religious Freedom Restoration Act, which became effective immediately. Iowa’s Religious Freedom Restoration Act (“RFRA”) is modeled on a similar law...more
Seyfarth Synopsis: As reported here, for the two-year anniversary of the U.S. Supreme Court’s rulings regarding Article III standing in TransUnion LLC v. Ramirez (“TransUnion”), the Workplace Class Action blog is providing a...more
Seyfarth Synopsis: In Braidwood Management, Inc. v. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, the Fifth Circuit endorsed for-profit employers integrating their religious beliefs into their employment policies to apply the...more
On September 7, 2022, a US district court judge for the Northern District of Texas issued a ruling that preventive care provisions in the Affordable Care Act (ACA) requiring private insurance plans to cover drugs that prevent...more
The DE OFCCP Week in Review (WIR) is a simple, fast and direct summary of relevant happenings in the OFCCP regulatory environment, authored by experts John C. Fox, Candee Chambers and Cynthia L. Hackerott. In today’s edition,...more
This week, the EEOC approved employers requiring employees to receive COVID-19 vaccination, subject to limitations. How limiting are the limitations? Case law applying them is thin, but generally treats them as narrow. In...more
On November 9, 2020, the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (“EEOC”) voted 3-2 to release a proposed update to Section 12 of the EEOC Compliance Manual addressing religious discrimination. Section 12 of the...more
In Bostock v. Clayton County, Georgia, the United States Supreme Court held that “an employer who fires an individual merely for being gay or transgender violates Title VII.” With its decision, however, the Supreme Court...more
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Perhaps the most significant EEO issue percolating through the federal court system right now is whether Title VII’s prohibition against sex discrimination encompasses discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation and...more
As members of the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender community (LGBT+) are increasingly open at work about their identities, circuit courts are recognizing that Title VII of the Civil Rights Act protects them from...more
Last month, with its decision in EEOC v. R.G. & G.R. Harris Funeral Homes, Inc., 884 F.3d 560 (6th Cir. 2018) the Sixth Circuit broadened Title VII protection to include protection for individuals who are transgender or...more
Earlier this month, we discussed the Second Circuit Court of Appeals’ decision concluding that Title VII prohibits discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation. Days later, the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals (covering...more
Does discrimination based on gender identity fall within Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964’s protection against discrimination “because of sex”? Adopting the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission’s (EEOC)...more
Title VII’s protections against sex discrimination extend to transgender workers, even in the face of a challenge based on the employer’s religious rights, a federal appellate court has held....more
Back in April 2017, the federal 7th Circuit Court of Appeals (governing Illinois, Indiana, and Wisconsin) made big news when it determined that Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 prevents employers from discriminating...more
The Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals is the latest to weigh in on the heated debate as to whether sexual orientation, gender identity, transgender status and/or gender expression are protected classes under Title VII of the...more
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit ruled on March 7 that employer R.G. & G.R. Harris Funeral Homes unlawfully discriminated on the basis of sex when it fired a transgender employee after she informed the company...more
In the past two weeks, we saw two major decisions in the area of LGBTQ rights in the workplace. First, the Second Circuit in New York held that Title VII does prohibit discrimination based on sexual orientation. Zarda v....more
The Sixth Circuit decision seems overall correct, although it contains some "woke dicta," too. Last week, a panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit issued its decision in the EEOC v. R.G. & G.R. Harris...more
Last week, the United States Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit held—for the first time—that discrimination based on transgender and transitioning status violates Title VII. Although the court has previously held that...more
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit recently ruled, in what many have described as a ground-breaking decision, that discrimination based on an employee’s transgender status is discrimination based on “sex” in...more
On March 7, 2018, the United States Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit reversed the dismissal of a gender identity discrimination lawsuit filed by the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) against a Michigan...more
The Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals has held that discrimination against transgender/LBGTQ employees is discrimination on the basis of sex that violates Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. Equal Employment Opportunity...more
Last week, the Sixth Circuit (which covers Kentucky, Michigan, Ohio and Tennessee) held that Title VII provides transgender and transitioning employees with protection from employment-related discrimination....more