BREAKING NEWS: Supreme Court rules existing civil rights law protects gay and lesbian workers.

Supreme Court rules existing civil rights law protects gay and lesbian workers.

NBC NEWS.

PETE WILLIAMS

Jun 15th 2020 10:16AM

The U.S. Supreme Court ruled Monday that existing federal law forbids job discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation, a major victory for advocates of gay rights — and a surprising one from an increasingly conservative court.

The decision said Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which makes it illegal for employers to discriminate because of a person's sex, among other factors, also covers sexual orientation. It upheld rulings from lower courts that said sexual orientation discrimination was a form of sex discrimination.

Across the nation, 21 states have their own laws prohibiting job discrimination based on sexual orientation or gender identity. Seven more provide that protection only to public employees. Those laws remain in force, but Monday's ruling means federal law now provides similar protection for LGBT employees in the rest of the country.

Gay rights groups considered the case a highly significant one, even more important than the fight to get the right to marry, because nearly every LGBT adult has or needs a job.

They conceded that sexual orientation was not on the minds of anyone in Congress when the civil rights law was passed. But they said when an employer fires a male employee for dating men, but not a female employee who dates men, that violates the law.

The ruling was a victory for Gerald Bostock, who was fired from a county job in Georgia after he joined a gay softball team, and the relatives of Donald Zarda, a skydiving instructor who was fired after he told a female client not to worry about being strapped tightly to him during a jump, because he was "100 percent gay." Zarda died before the case reached the Supreme Court.

The Trump administration had urged the court to rule that Title VII does not cover cases like those, in a reversal from the position the government took during the Obama administration.

"The ordinary meaning of 'sex' is biologically make or female; it does not include sexual orientation," the Justice Department said. "An employer who discriminates against employees in same-sex relationships thus does not violate Title VII as long as it treats men in same-sex relationships the same as women in same-sex relationships."

The case came to the Supreme Court that no longer includes Anthony Kennedy, who wrote all of the court's significant gay rights decisions. He was succeeded by Brett Kavanaugh, who is generally more conservative than Kennedy.

THIS IS WHAT "HONOR" SOUNDS LIKE.

Top general mulled resigning after Trump's photo op.

The Pentagon’s top general discussed resigning amid criticism over his participation in President Donald Trump’s controversial photo op at a Washington church, three

defense officials familiar with the matter told NBC News.

Gen. Mark Milley, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, apologized over the incident Thursday, saying, "I should not have been there."

The apology came after a tumultuous 10 days for Milley that involved a flash of anger at an Oval Office meeting over the use of active duty troops to quell protests and culminated in him speaking with confidantes about whether he should resign over the staged visit at St. John’s Episcopal Church, the officials said.

The events began on the morning of June 1 following a night of violent protests and looting in Washington that left the historic St. John’s church damaged and national monuments covered in graffiti.

In an Oval Office meeting with Vice President Mike Pence, Secretary of Defense Mark Esper, Attorney General William Barr and Milley, the president said he was angry that the National Guard had not been deployed in Washington, a senior administration official said.

The president’s message was: “We have to get the capital under control. What can we do? I don’t care if you have to put 10,000 National Guard out there,” the official said.

A discussion ensued over invoking the Insurrection Act to send in active duty troops to quash the unrest triggered by the death of George Floyd, the official said, but Esper, Milley, and Barr all pushed back on the idea.

Milley became so fired up explaining why using active duty troops was dangerous that he shook his fists to emphasize his points, according to three defense officials familiar with the meeting. The officials asked not to be identified because they were not authorized to speak about the private meeting.

After the meeting, Esper and other military leaders began a full-court press effort to encourage the nation’s governors to activate their National Guard forces on state duty. The defense officials said they hoped to get enough Guard forces working that the active duty troops would not be necessary.

At 1 p.m., the 82nd Airborne Brigade Immediate Response Force was ordered to deploy from Fort Bragg to Fort Belvoir. About 1,000 paratroopers would be ready to respond in Washington if the president invoked the Insurrection Act.

That afternoon, Milley was prepared to go to the FBI Field office, the command hub for the response to protests in the city. Thinking he would be there for several hours, he wore his combat fatigues, three defense officials said. But he was unexpectedly called to the White House for the president’s Rose Garden address, the officials said.

“It didn’t make sense to go all the way back to the Pentagon to change when he was already in the city,” a senior defense official said.

AMERICAN PHILOSOPHICAL ASSOCIATION: Statements Condemning Racist Violence and Police Brutality.

June 3, 2020

The APA Board of Officers has issued the following statement:

The American Philosophical Association unequivocally condemns all forms of racist violence and white supremacy. We are pained and outraged at the countless incidents of police brutality and injustice toward Black people both recently and throughout the history of the United States, and we stand against the structural and institutional racism that enables these actions. The APA board of officers reaffirms our commitment to diversity, equity, and inclusion in our discipline. As philosophers, scholars, teachers, and learners, we have a responsibility to work toward a better, more just society.

In addition, the APA Graduate Student Council has issued a related statement:

To the Graduate Student Community,

We are deeply angered and heartbroken by the recent killings of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, Ahmaud Arbery, Tony McDade, as well as the countless others who have lost their lives due to racist violence and police brutality. We write to you to express our unwavering solidarity in the fight against systematic and structural racism, white supremacy, and the long-standing oppression faced by Black communities and other communities of color in the United States, Canada, and beyond.

We are a community that needs to stand together. We take it as our duty—in fact, as core to the very mission and purpose of the GSC, to represent and advocate on behalf of the interests and concerns of all graduate student members of the APA—to call out this injustice. We also call for the continued care and support of our Black graduate students. To those who are currently teaching, we encourage you to create space in your classrooms for your students to process, and to provide proper accommodations for those who are hurting right now. To those who are taking courses, we encourage you to call on your professors to provide proper accommodations in ways that will not systematically burden Black students. 

The GSC is committed to amplifying the voices of historically marginalized members of our profession, and to continually organizing in support of making our discipline a more genuinely inclusive and welcoming place for everyone, regardless of race, gender identity, sexual orientation, creed, or class. Therefore, it is especially important to affirm that Black Lives Matter and that we have a responsibility to work together for justice. We encourage those who can to be involved in their local communities and to educate themselves on the issues involved.

Some resources include:

• The Black Lives Matter Syllabus
• Keisha Blain on the history of policing in the US
• Melvin Rogers on the current protests
• Kimberlé Crenshaw on Racism, Intersectionality, and the Death of George Floyd in the Times of COVID-19
• Episodes of Myisha Cherry’s UnMute Podcast

To all of those who are in pain right now: we hear you, we see you, and we are with you.

Yours in Solidarity,
The Graduate Student Council of the American Philosophical Association

The APA invites philosophers to explore resources for teaching about race and racism in our Diversity and Inclusiveness Syllabus Collection and, in particular, its section on Philosophy of Race.

AMERICAN PHILOSOPHICAL ASSOCIATION: Call for Anti-Racist Resources for Teaching Philosophy.

Dear DAVID, The American Philosophical Association Committee on the Teaching of Philosophy and Committee on Inclusiveness in the Profession are creating an anti-racist resource list. If you have materials you could include on the list, please complete this form. We will begin reviewing materials on June 29, but we will continue accepting submissions and adding to the list through the summer. If you have any questions or concerns about the form or the list that is being compiled by the APA, please contact Cecilea Mun (cecileamun@icloud.com). Please share this announcement widely. Thank you! In addition, as you may be aware, last week the APA board of officers and the Graduate Student Council issued statements condemning racist violence and police brutality. Both statements are available on the APA website. All the best, David W. Concepción Chair, APA Committee on the Teaching of Philosophy

The American Philosophical Association University of Delaware 31 Amstel Avenue, Newark, DE 19716