Supreme Court taking on big issues that have been percolating for a while

[Elderberry]

ABA Journal By Mark Walsh 9/1/2019

The U.S. Supreme Court will tackle some pretty big issues in its next term, including cases on LGBT rights, immigration and its first major case on gun rights in nearly a decade. And that’s with only about half of its docket filled for the term that begins Oct. 7.

“The court has on its agenda a set of really high-profile cases,” says Adam Winkler, a law professor at the University of California at Los Angeles. “The reason is that the court stayed out of the political thicket last term.”

Most legal observers agree that the justices worked hard to block or push down the road several contentious cases from last term’s docket, except for two big issues that it pretty much had to decide: political gerrymandering and the citizenship question on the U.S. census.

“I think they are only able to keep these big blockbuster cases off the docket for a short period of time,” says Leah Litman, an assistant professor at the University of Michigan Law School and a co-host of the podcast Strict Scrutiny.

High stakes for LGBT rights

One set of potential blockbusters will be heard Oct. 8. Two consolidated cases ask whether workplace discrimination based on sexual orientation is covered by Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, specifically its prohibition against bias “because of … sex.” The ABA filed an amicus brief supporting the employees. The third case, which will be argued separately, asks whether Title VII bars discrimination against transgender workers because of their transgender status or because of sex stereotyping.

“There is a lot at stake in these cases for LGBT people,” says James D. Esseks, the director of the American Civil Liberties Union’s Lesbian Gay Bisexual Transgender & HIV Project and co-counsel in two of the cases. “The reality is that LGBT people have been relying on protections based on sex discrimination statutes for years. The question before the court is, Are [the justices] going to take those protections away?”-----

The future of DACA

The court will take up another set of controversial cases, this time involving the efforts of President Donald J. Trump’s administration to terminate the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program.

That program, begun under President Barack Obama in 2012, provides relief from deportation to as many as 800,000 undocumented young people who came to the United States before age 16.-----

Bracing for a gunfight

In January, the high court granted review of a major gun rights case: New York State Rifle & Pistol Association Inc. v. City of New York, about whether the city’s ban on transporting a licensed, locked and unloaded handgun to a home or shooting range outside city limits is consistent with the Second Amendment.

However, whether the justices will end up hearing arguments and deciding the new case was put in doubt over the summer.

More: http://www.abajournal.com/magazine/article/contentious-cases

[truth_seeker]

I served as a Sr. manager for years, of a Fortune 500 Corp, now Hq in Texas, in the Energy business.

From at least 1977 we operated as if Homosexuals would not be discriminated against.

I believe one aspect, were the comany's remote work sites, which were attractive for gay men. As such a company would have a "tolerant" approach, in order to attract qualified workers.

I was young,  naive, had no gaydar at the time (per my wife). Only in retrospect did the picture become more clear.