A central Illinois LGBTQ advocate says Monday’s Supreme Court ruling on workplace discrimination was a big victory, though more work is needed to ensure comprehensive protections across other areas of American life.
In a historic decision, the Supreme Court ruled the 1964 Civil Rights Act protects gay, lesbian, and transgender employees from discrimination based on sex. The decision is a huge victory for the LGBTQ community, and a major loss for the Trump administration that had sided with employers in three cases before the court.
LGBTQ activists have worked hard to secure workplace discrimination policies on a state-by-state basis, said Dave Bentlin, board president with the Prairie Pride Coalition.
“But with this decision today, it becomes pretty clear that the law of the land is you cannot discriminate based on sexual orientation and gender identity in the workplace. That can be seen as nothing but a huge victory for our community,” he said.
Nearly half the states have no legal protection for LGBTQ employees. Now, the federal law will protect employees in those states from firing and making other adverse employment decisions on the basis of their sexual orientation or gender identity.
Bentlin said legal vigilance will be required to protect this “powerful” decision from those who might try to erode it, as has happened with the landmark Roe v. Wade abortion ruling.
“There are always going to be those opposing forces trying to chisel away at the power of that decision, trying to minimize it, or carve out exclusions,” Bentlin said.
A more comprehensive anti-discrimination approach would be passage of the Equality Act, he said. That bill would enshrine in law many of the protections conferred by the Obama administration's rules and policies by explicitly prohibiting discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation and gender identity in education, federal funding, employment, housing, and more.
Last year, the Democrat-controlled House passed the bill and sent it to the Republican-controlled Senate, where it has stalled.
“While these decisions today were very positive, there’s still a lot of work to be done,” Bentlin said. “There are still a lot of places in this country where discrimination can take place.”
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