Discrimination In Texas

Lawrence v. Texas: The Justification for the Decision and its Significance for the LGBTQ+ Community

The addition of sexual orientation has gone before Congress many times but it has yet to be included as a protected class. There is so much controversy surrounding gay marriage right now that I believe it is only a matter of time before employment discrimination because of sexual orientation will be the reason for the Title VII will be amended once again. The most recent additions to this law have been discriminating based upon pregnancy, sex stereotyping, and sexual harassment. Title VII states that an employer can’t refuse to hire a woman based upon the fact that she is currently pregnant or because of any pregnancy-related conditions. To be safe and to avoid any litigation in the future, an employer should never ask an individual about their marital status or a woman if she is pregnant.

The history of LGBTQIA+ rights in the United States is long and complicated. The identities within the LGBTQIA+ community that are accepted have shifted over the years as the majority of the population comes to understand some identities to be commonplace and struggles to understand others. However, the gaining of rights and acceptance by the LGBTQIA+ community has nearly always been tied to legal recognition. Lawrence v. Texas questions whether or not a Texas statute that bans homosexual sodomy is constitutional. Although LGBTQIA+ rights issues are controversial, the statute that convicted John Lawrence and Tyson Garner for having private, consensual gay sex as well as the means of conviction are clearly unconstitutional on several grounds,

Texas has its own laws for employment discrimination but employers who follow the federal laws will be compliant under the Texas labor code.. The Texas Labor Code Anti-Discrimination Provisions are very similar to the Federal Discrimination guidelines. This is a similar trend throughout many states within the U.S. In Texas, local governments can establish their own anti-discrimination rules. For example, in the city of Austin, several city ordinances make it unlawful to restrict access to public accommodation or discriminate on employment on the basis of gender identity or sexual orientation specifically to lesbians and gays. It is also illegal to discriminate

Civil Rights are types of laws that embrace common situations that affect individual’s lives, such as employment, voting, housing, education and public accommodations and facilities. These laws exist as a matter of creating policies that promote opportunities for all persons and equality without regard of gender, race, disabilities, religion or national origin. This legal phenomenon might happen by various reasons: lack of equality in the society, prejudice against minorities, or existence of previous laws that support the oppressed.

According to the article “Gender Identity Discrimination” (n.d), this occurs in the place of work when a company or its management makes a distinction in opposition to a worker exclusively because of their sexual characteristics or distinctiveness. This can include ceasing employment for a transgender staff member after the company/employer discovers the employee's gender distinctiveness or intended plan for conversion. This can also consist of rejecting a transgender employee’s admittance to the bathroom amenities at work that are accessible to other staff members. This may also include necessitating a transgender individual use the bathroom that is not constant with the person’s gender individuality or appearance. Also included in this form of discrimination is harassment or refusing to investigate claims of persecution by coworkers and management. As well as, any other unconstructive employment exploitation directly related to the employee’s gender presentation. Is should be noted that at right now , this category of discrimination is not illegal under federal law , however, there is governmental endeavors in the works to pass federal laws to make it unequivocally

Title VII of the Civils Rights Act of 1964 is a U.S. federal law that prohibits employers from discriminating against employees on the basis of sex, race, color, national origin, and religion. Title V11 applies to private and public universities, local, state and federal governments, labor organizations and employment agencies. Today, the conversation surrounding discrimination has increasingly been based on race and gender and has emerged as an issues that many employers are trying to address in workforce development. Unfortunately, there are other groups that have similar attention or protection under U.S. laws and if so, they are still facing discrimination. LGBT employees are a group that has received minimal attention when it

The Civil Rights Movement from the mid 1950’s to late 1960’s fought for equal rights of People of color in this nation. That movement was successful in pushing for an end to racial segregation and discrimination in the country. Decades later, a new movement is beginning to gain traction in the fights against excess police brutality against People of Color. “Since the acquittal of Trayvon Martin's killer in 2013 and the killing of Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri, in 2014, the phrase "black lives matter" has become a rallying cry for a new chapter in the long black freedom struggle” ( Cooper 2017). The movement has been growing since and more and more after every new case of a person of color being killed by police enforcement. Contemporary anti-racist social movements like Black Lives Matter have had a definitive impact in changing the way people of color are treated, by creating the very important conversation of police brutality against people of color. In order to keep the movement growing, it have has to keep expanding its message of excessive police violence and push for policies that would create better training for law enforcement.

America, in 2015, is a dystopia for many. Our country has begun to throw away the very values and principles its foundation was built on. Yet, some fail to see the problem and still claim this is the land of the free, home of the brave. How can it be the land of the free when African Americans are shot down in the streets by police every day, with little to no consequences for the killers? When incarceration rates in the US are higher than that of any other country, and minor drug offenders can serve sentences of up to 20 years? We spend more on funding prisons and the military, than we do on improving education. In Maryland, the state government passed a bill to fund juvenile prisons, worth millions of dollars, but did not pass one to fund

Virginia case opened the door to a new civil rights movement. This time, it is about the rights of the LGBT community. Only in recent years has homosexuality become acceptable in the public eye. Regardless of the laws stating we cannot discriminate against people based on their sexual orientation, homosexual individuals are still treated as second class citizens. Gay men and women were denied the right to marry whom they loved. Couples had to fight for their love one state at a time until finally, on June 26th, 2015, the United States supreme court ruled that discriminating against same sex marriages was unconstitutional and “states must recognize same sex unions” (Chappell 2015).

“I have a dream that one day this nation will rise up and live out the true meaning of its creed-we hold these truths to be self-evident: that all men are created equal.” This was a quote by Martin Luther King Jr. He believed in the idea of equality for all men, in a world where a black man and a white man can walk together side by side, a world without segregation, jobs and equal pay for the people. Martin Luther led one of the greatest demonstration for freedom in the history of the United States. As a civil right activist, he stood for equal rights for all people and he led a great march of over two hundred and fifty thousand civil right supporters for quality and the end of racism in the United States. His speech “I have a dream” paved the way in setting a decisive moment for the American civil rights movement in the country.

Attorney General Jeff Sessions has ordered the Justice Department on October 6, 2017, according to the New York Times, with a two-page memo addressed to all United States attorneys and other top officials, to no longer look at transgender people being protected by a civil rights law banning workplace discrimination based on sex (Savage, 2017).

Title VII states that an employee cannot be treated differently because of sex unless sex is a bona fide occupational qualification (BFOQ). When used as a defense, bona fide occupational qualification (BFOQ) allows an organization to hire and employ individuals on the basis of the qualifications reasonably necessary to the normal operation of that particular business or enterprise. This paper will discuss the necessary steps employers must take in order to justify using sex as a discriminator when hiring employees and review some known cases where BFOQ was used as a defense.

Muñoz, S. T., & Kalteux, D. M. (2016). LGBT, the EEOC, and the Meaning of "Sex". Florida Bar Journal, 90(3), 43-48.

Professor Johnson’s lecture sparked conversation about whether or not the Supreme Court ruling accomplished enough for the LGBT community. At the time, I was unaware of how the ruling could be something that wasn’t an all-around win for the community, but after being introduced to queer politics