Department of Justice to Ask Supreme Court to Consider Military Transgender Ban
December 11th, 2018
The Department of Justice announced plans to ask the US Supreme Court to review President Trump’s ban on military service for transgender individuals.
In a recent court filing, the Department of Justice announced plans to ask the United States Supreme Court to review President Trump’s ban on military service for transgender individuals. The Department of Justice announced that it plans to file a request before the Supreme Court by November 23, which means that the justices would be able to decide whether to hear the case during their January 11th conference.
Previous Court Rulings
In 2017, Judge Kollar-Kotelly of the United States District Court for the District of Columbia granted an injunction that blocked the military as well as Homeland Security from implementing the ban. In 2018, Judge Kollar-Kotelly rejected the Trump administration’s request to dissolve the injunction after it reworked the ban on the basis that discharging transgender individuals from the military would likely constitute unconstitutional discrimination.
The Department of Justice’s disclosure has requested Kollar-Kotelly keep an injunction in place while the Supreme Court hears the case. The requests asks at a minimum that Kollar-Kottely scale back the prohibit so that the removal of the ban only applies to a few individuals who filed the lawsuit instead of the whole country.
The Future of the Case
The Supreme Court is currently scheduled to consider whether it should grant review in a separate case that asks whether transgender discrimination violates the 1964 Civil Right Act’s ban on sex discrimination in employment.
Important Law in this Case
Sex discrimination involves treating a person who is either an applicant or an employee in an unfavorable manner as a result of that person’s sex. More specifically, Title VII makes it a violation to discriminate against a person on the basis of sex, race, color, religion, and national origin.
This law prohibits discrimination in any part of employment including hiring, firing, job assignments, pay, promotion, and a number of other different terms associated with employment. It is also against the law to harass an individual due to that person’s sex.
Sexual harassment includes requests for sexual favors, unwelcome sexual advances, and physical or verbal harassment of a sexual nature. Under current laws, the victim and the harasser can be the same or different sex.
It is important to understand what the law does not prohibit, which includes offhand comments, teasing, or situations that are not overly serious. Instead, harassment is viewed as illegal when it is so common or severe that it create a hostile work environment or when it leads to an adverse employment decision.
Despite these laws, an employment policy that applies to all individuals can be classified as illegal if it has a negative impact on the employment of individuals of a certain sex and is not related to the operation of a company.
Following the Most Recent Developments in LGBTQ Rights
The Universal Life Church’s blog strives to document the most recent developments in transgender rights. While many of these cases concern particularly complex laws, we focus on bringing you the news in a clear and meaningful way.
(image courtesy of Jakob Owens)
