A Supreme Court ruling last June concluded that a half-century-old prohibition on sex discrimination in employment applies equally to discrimination against gay and lesbian workers as well as those who are transgender.
The Justice Department has taken its first major step under President Joe Biden to reverse the Trump administration’s resistance to expansion of rights accorded to LGBTQ Americans.
Greg Friel, the lawyer just named to oversee the Justice Department’s civil rights division on a temporary basis, issued a directive Friday revoking a 22-page memorandum a Trump appointee released earlier this week taking a cramped view of a major Supreme Court decision last year that longstanding federal law protects LGBTQ individuals from discrimination at work.
In withdrawing the parting-shot memo from the prior administration, Friel said the stance taken in the memo conflicted with a first-day executive order Biden issued promising a vigorous battle against discrimination based on “gender identity or sexual orientation.” Continue reading.