Monday round-up
on Aug 26, 2019 at 11:23 am
The Office of the Solicitor General on Friday filed an amicus brief in the consolidated cases Bostock v. Clayton County, Georgia and Altitude Express Inc. v. Zarda, concerning sex discrimination under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. At The Wall Street Journal (via How Appealing), Brent Kendall reports that the brief asks the Supreme Court “to rule that a longstanding federal civil-rights law prohibiting sex discrimination doesn’t protect gay people in the workplace.” At NBC News, Brooke Sopelsa reports the crux of the administration’s logic: “The ordinary meaning of ‘sex’ is biologically male or female; it does not include sexual orientation.”
The Supreme Court announced Friday that Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg had undergone successful treatment for a malignant tumor on her pancreas. Amy Howe reports for this blog citing the court’s statement that “the tumor was treated definitively and there is no evidence of disease elsewhere in the body.” At NPR, Nina Totenberg reports that while undergoing treatment Ginsburg “kept up a busy schedule in New York, often going out in the evening to the movies, the opera and the theater.”
At the Florida Court Review, John Cavaliere notes that, in a statement respecting the denial of cert in capital case Bowles v. Florida on Thursday, Justice Sonia Sotomayor “criticized Florida’s retroactive application of Hall v. Florida to some inmates but not others.” Amy Howe has this blog’s coverage.
Briefly:
- At the National Review, William Haun argues that a petition pending before the Supreme Court gives the justices “an excellent opportunity to do what four justices recently expressed an interest in doing: ‘revisit’ Employment Division v. Smith,” a 1990 decision holding that a neutral and generally applicable government regulation that affects members of a specific religion does not violate the free exercise clause.
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