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Federal Court Dismisses Challenge to Religious Exemptions under Title IX

Posted on: January 15th, 2023 by Art Leonard No Comments

 

Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972 prohibits educational programs or activities that receive federal funds from excluding, denying benefits to, or subjecting to discrimination any person on the basis of sex.  Title IX includes a provision exempting from this anti-discrimination rule any educational institution that “is controlled by a religious organization” with “religious tenets” inconsistent with complying with Title IX.

 

In 2020, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in Bostock v. Clayton County, a decision interpreting Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, that it is impossible to discriminate on the basis of sexual orientation or transgender status without discriminating “because of sex.”  In 2021, early in the Biden administration, the U.S. Department of Education announced that it would apply Bostock’s reasoning to interpret Title IX, and would accept complaints of discrimination from students of educational institutions that are subject to Title IX because they receive federal funds.  In 2020, the last year of the Trump administration, the Education Department adopted a regulation making it easier for religious schools to benefit from the exemption language in Title IX.  Prior to these new regulations, schools that wanted to claim the exemption to avoid DoE investigations had to file a written request to DoE to be determined to qualify for the exemption.  The 2020 regulations made such written applications optional, and said that religious educational institutions could raise the exemption to get an investigation dismissed without having made such a written request.

 

Responding to these developments, an organization called the Religious Exemption Accountability Project (REAP) was formed to bring a lawsuit on behalf of LGBTQ people who have discrimination claims against religious schools, seeking a declaration that the statutory exemption is unconstitutional and that the 2020 Trump administration regulation violates the Administrative Procedure Act.  The lawsuit against the Department of Education and the Assistant Secretary for Civil Rights, which was filed in the U.S. District Court in Oregon in March 2021, was ultimately expanded to include claims by forty LGBTQ+ individuals.  The Council for Christian Colleges & Universities and some other organizations intervened to defend the exemptions that they enjoy under Title IX.

 

The essence of REAP’s claim is that it is unconstitutional for the government to provide funding to religious colleges and universities that discriminate on the basis of sexual orientation or gender identity.

 

On January 12, 2023, U.S. District Judge Ann Aiken granted a motion by the defendants and the intervenors to dismiss the lawsuit.  Hunter v. U.S. Department of Education, 2023 WL 172199, 2023 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 5745 (D. Ore., 1/12/23).

 

Although Judge Aiken rejected the defendants’ argument that the plaintiffs lacked standing to bring their constitutional claims against DoE, which enforces Title IX, she accepted the defendants’ argument that the plaintiffs lack standing to assert their Administrative Procedure Act claim.

 

More to the point, however, Judge Aiken found that the Supreme Court has upheld statutory exemptions from compliance with federal laws by religious organizations, virtually foreclosing the Equal Protection and First Amendment claims asserted by the plaintiffs.  “Here, Plaintiffs have provided voluminous allegations going toward the element of disparate impact – the first hurdle to mounting an equal protection claim,” wrote Judge Aiken.  “However, Plaintiffs have submitted no allegations of discriminatory motivation on the part of those enacting the religious exemption.”

 

This is significant because the Supreme Court has held that the Equal Protection requirement extends only to intentional discrimination by the government.  “To the contrary,” wrote Aiken, “Plaintiffs argue that when Congress enacted Title IX [in 1972], protections against sexual and gender minorities – were ‘of no concern.’”

 

“Plaintiffs provide no evidence and supply no allegations … for the Court to consider and evaluate whether Congress was motivated in part by a discriminatory purpose when it enacted the religious exemption.  The Court cannot conclude that Plaintiffs’ assertion that ‘Congress enacted the religious exemption to permit discrimination based on sex, sexual orientation, and gender identity’ is sufficient.”  She deemed such statements to be “conclusory” and “therefore not entitled to an assumption of truth.”

 

The judge pointed out that the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals, whose jurisdiction covers Oregon, has ruled that statutes that are alleged to discriminate based on sexual orientation or gender identity are subject to “heightened scrutiny,” which means that the challenge will fail if the statute is found to “serve important government objectives” and “the discriminatory means employed are substantially related to the achievement of those objectives.”

 

“Plaintiffs have not alleged how the religious exemption fails intermediate scrutiny,” wrote Judge Aiken.  “Defendants point out that the Ninth Circuit has recognized ‘that free exercise of religion and conscience is undoubtedly, fundamentally important.’  Exempting religious controlled educational institutions from Title IX – and only to the extent that a particular application of Title IX would not be consistent with a specific tenet of the controlling religious organization — is substantially related to the government’s objective of accommodating religious exercise.”

 

The judge concluded that the plaintiffs’ substantive due process claim was too vague, commenting that “plaintiffs invoke only a vague reference to ‘due process’ violations, and do not set forth the elements of a substantive due process claim or facts supporting such a claim.”

 

Perhaps the strongest arguments for the plaintiffs would be their Establishment Clause argument – that granting the exemption shows government favoritism for religions that discriminate on the basis of sex, sexual orientation, or gender identity, but the court found this argument to be foreclosed by the Supreme Court’s decisions upholding various religious exemptions for the purpose of accommodating an employer’s religious free exercise, including a provision in Title VII that exempts religious employers from the statute’s general prohibition on employment discrimination on the basis of religion.

 

The court concluded that the plaintiffs had not identified “legal authority that would distinguish this case from the facts and law at issue” in the Title VII cases.  Furthermore, she wrote, “Though Plaintiffs have much to say about Defendants [implementing the exclusion provision], Plaintiffs have failed to demonstrate any impermissible purpose Congress had in enacting the religious exemption,” especially in light of the Supreme Court’s decisions upholding religious exemptions under other statutes.  Indeed, the court found, by exempting religious schools from Title IX, Congress could be said to be avoiding “excessive entanglement” between the government and religion by eliminating DoE investigations of discrimination claims against religious schools.

 

The court also rejected the plaintiffs’ argument that the religious school exemption somehow violated the First Amendment free speech rights of students by creating a “chilling effect” on student speech.  She found that the statute “contains no reference to speech or viewpoint…  Plaintiffs’ allegation that Defendants lack a compelling governmental interest in ‘funding private educational institutions that restrict First Amendment rights…’ asserts that it is the ‘institutions that restrict’ Plaintiffs’ rights.  In so alleging,” she continued, “Plaintiffs fail to supply any facts connecting Defendants’ provision of ‘funding’ to educational institutions with a free speech violation.  As such, Plaintiffs have not pled ‘factual content that allows the court to draw the reasonable inference that the defendant is liable for the misconduct alleged.’”

 

Finally, the court rejected the plaintiffs’ argument that the religious exemption violated their own right to free exercise of their religious beliefs in violation of the Religious Freedom Restoration Act.  “The text of RFRA is clear that government granting exemptions does not constitute a violation, unless impermissible under Establishment Clause principles,” she wrote.

 

REAP must now decide whether to appeal this ruling to the Ninth Circuit.  In light of the Ninth Circuit precedents on which the court relied, winning an appeal is likely to be a long shot.

 

Judge Aiken was appointed to the district court by President Bill Clinton in 1998.

Federal Court Says West Virginia Can Bar Transgender Girls from Girls’ Sports Teams

Posted on: January 9th, 2023 by Art Leonard No Comments

A federal judge ruled on January 5 that a West Virginia law forbidding transgender girls from competing on girls’ scholastic sports teams does not violate the constitution or the federal law banning sex discrimination by educational institutions.   B.P.J. v. West Virginia State Board of Education, 2023 WL 111875, 2023 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 1820 (S.D.W.Va., Jan. 5, 2023).

West Virginia enacted the “Save Women’s Sports Bill” in 2021.  The bill says that “inherent differences” between “biological males and females” justify having separate athletic teams for “biological males” and “biological females,” and that regardless of gender identity, for purposes of sports competition transgender females are biological males.

Becky, the plaintiff in B.P.J. v. West Virginia Board of Education, is now eleven years old, She was identified as male at birth, but “began expressing her female gender identity when she was three years old,” according to the complaint filed on her behalf by Lambda Legal and the American Civil Liberties Union.  “By the end of third grade, B.P.J. expressed herself fully – both at home and otherwise – as a girl,” wrote U.S. District Judge Joseph R. Goodwin.  She was diagnosed with gender dysphoria in 2019 and began taking puberty blocking medications at the first signs of puberty, so she has “not undergone endogenous male puberty,” wrote the judge.

When she was preparing to enter middle school, she wanted to try out for the girls’ cross-country and track teams.  Her mother asked the school to let her participate, but they told her that it would depend on what happened with the “Save Women’s Sports Bill,” which was then being considered by the state legislature.  When the bill passed, B.P.J. was informed that she would not be permitted to try out for the girls’ team.  She filed her lawsuit on May 26, 2021, claiming a violation of Equal Protection under the 14th Amendment and of Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972 which bans sex discrimination.

She immediately sought a preliminary injunction so she could try out for the team while the case was pending.  The decision whether to grant a preliminary injunction requires the court to determine whether Becky had a likelihood of success on the merits of her “as-applied” challenge to the law.  Judge Goodwin granted the preliminary injunction, but shortly thereafter granted a motion by a cisgender female college athlete, represented by Alliance Defending Freedom (ADF), to intervene to defend the law from the perspective of a “biological woman” who might have to compete with transgender “biological men.”

Despite issuing the preliminary injunction, which allowed B.P.J. to try out for the girls’ team for the 2021-22 season, Judge Goodwin changed his mind about the merits, ruling for the state and the intervenor on January 5.

Before explaining his ruling, Judge Goodwin noted that B.P.J. was not arguing that the West Virginia law was unconstitutional under the “animus” doctrine, which holds that a legislature cannot pass a law that discriminates against a disfavored group out of animus against that group.  She also was not challenging a policy of having separate teams for boys and girls.  Instead, she was arguing that she was “similarly situated” to cisgender girls for all relevant purposes and thus should be entitled to be treated the same as them play women’s sports.

Judge Goodwin found that the law should be tested under the “intermediate scrutiny” standard that some courts have adopted to evaluate transgender discrimination claims.  Under this standard, the state can successfully defend a discriminatory law by showing that it significantly advances an important state interest.  He treated the issue before the court as whether the state could define sex as “biological sex” and treat B.P.J.. as male for purposes of sports competition.

“Whether a person has male or female sex chromosomes determines many of the physical characteristics relevant to athletic performance,” wrote Goodwin.  “While some females may be able to outperform some males, it is generally accepted that, on average, males outperform females athletically because of inherent physical differences between the sexes.  This is not an overbroad generalization, but rather a general principle that realistically reflects the average physical differences between the sexes.  Given B.P.J.’s concession that circulating testosterone in males creates a biological difference in athletic performance, I do not see how I could find that the state’s classification based on biological sex is not substantially related to its interest in providing equal athletic opportunities for females.”

Although he conceded that by taking puberty blockers, B.P.J. may have avoided the physical advantage that “biological males,” on average, enjoy, he wrote that “other transgender girls may not take those medications” for a variety of reasons, including realizing their female gender identity after going through some or all of puberty or having difficulty in accessing the treatment.  “And,” he wrote, “as evidenced by the thousands of pages filed by the parties in this case, there is much debate over whether and to what extent hormone therapies after puberty can reduce a transgender girl’s athletic advantage over cisgender girls.”  Indeed, he found that “the social, medical, and physical transition of each transgender person is unique” but “the fact is… that a transgender girl is biologically male and, barring medical intervention, would undergo male puberty like other biological males.”

The oddity here, is that Goodwin’s analysis treats this “as-applied” challenge as if it is a “facial challenge.”  The question B.P.J. sought to pose is whether it violated her rights to apply a categorical exclusion of all “biological males” to her, rather than to have a policy of treating each transitioning person as unique to be evaluated based on their individual history.  Because she identified as female very early, took puberty blocking medications, and has not gone through male puberty, she argues that in terms of physical capabilities, she is more like a cisgender girls of her age than a biological boy of her age.

But the judge was convinced by ADF’s argument on behalf of the cisgender intervenor, who asserted that “some boys run slower than the average girl and some boys have circulating testosterone levels similar to the average girl because of medical conditions or medical interventions,” but B.P.J. has not argued that those boys should be allowed to play on girls’ teams.  “This is inconsistent with her argument that the availability of hormone therapies makes transgender girls similarly situated to cisgender girls,” wrote Goodwin.

“In fact,” he wrote, “after reviewing all of the evidence in the record, including B.P.J.’s telling responses to requests for admission, it appears that B.P.J. really argued that transgender girls are similarly situated to cisgender girls for purposes of athletics at the moment they verbalize their transgender status, regardless of their hormone levels.”  The lack of an actual quotation of a statement by B.P.J. to this effect in the court’s opinion causes one to doubt that she was making such an argument, however.

But Goodwin concluded that “the legislature’s definition of ‘girl’ as being based on ‘biological sex’ is substantially related to the important government interest of providing equal athletic opportunities for females.” As such, he decided that it survives the heightened scrutiny test.

Turning to Title IX, Goodwin reached the same result.  “There is no serious debate that Title IX’s endorsement of sex separation in sports refers to biological sex,” he wrote.  Since he had already found in his Equal Protection analysis that “transgender girls are biologically male” and thus, on average, advantaged over cisgender girls in athletic competition, he found that the West Virginia policy was fully consistent with Congress’s intent in Title IX to afford equal opportunity for female students to compete in scholastic athletics.

“I have no doubt that H.B. 3393 aimed to politicize participation in school athletics for transgender students,” wrote the judge.  “Nevertheless, there is not a sufficient record of legislative animus.” In other words, he concluded that the law was not shown by evidence to be the product of bias against transgender girls, but rather was motivated by the legislature’s desire to protect cisgender girls from what the legislature considered to be unfair competition from boys.

An appeal of Judge Goodwin’s ruling would go to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 4th Circuit, which has yet to weigh in on this issue.

Judge Goodwin was appointed by President Bill Clinton in 1995.

Federal Court Narrows Discovery in Trans Military Case, but Rejects Government’s Broad Privilege Claims

Posted on: September 20th, 2019 by Art Leonard No Comments

U.S. District Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly, ruling in the first of four pending lawsuits challenging the current version of the military policy on transgender service, issued a wide-ranging ruling on September 13 attempting to settle some of the remaining problems in deciding what information the plaintiffs are entitled to obtain through discovery as the case continues. The case, renamed since President Trump was removed as a defendant and James Mattis quit as Defense Secretary, is now called Jane Doe 2 v. Mark T. Esper, 2019 WL 4394842, 2019 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 156803 (D.D.C., September 13, 2019)

The decision makes clear that the court has rejected the government’s argument that the so-called “Mattis Plan,” implemented in April 2019 after the Supreme Court voted to stay the preliminary injunctions that had been issued by the district courts, is entitled to virtually total deference from the court, thus precluding any discovery into how the Mattis Plan was put together, allegedly by a task force of experts convened by Defense Secretary James Mattis in response to the president’s request for a plan to implement the total ban on transgender service that he announced by tweet in July 2017.

When Trump came into office, transgender people were serving openly in the military as a result of a policy announced at the end of June 2016 by President Obama’s Defense Secretary, Ashton Carter.  The Carter policy lifted the existing ban on open transgender military service, but delayed lifting the ban on enlistment of transgender people for one year.  The first move by the Trump Administration concerning this policy was an announcement by Secretary Mattis at the end of June 2017 that he would not lift the enlistment ban until January 2018 in order to make sure that all necessary policies were in place to evaluate transgender applicants for enlistment.

A few weeks later, catching just about everybody by surprise, President Trump tweeted his announcement of a total ban on transgender people serving.  This was followedby a White House memorandum in August 2017, delaying enlistment of transgender people indefinitely, but allowing those already in the military to continue serving until March 2018 while Secretary Mattis came up with an implementation plan to recommend to the president.

Starting in August 2017 and continuing into the fall, four law suits were filed in federal district courts around the country challenging the constitutionality of the ban as announced by the President.  Federal district judges issued preliminary injunctions in all four lawsuits while denying the government’s motion to dismiss them, setting the stage for discovery to begin.  Discovery is the phase of a lawsuit during which the parties can request information, testimony and documents from each other in order to build a factual record for the decision of the case, and under federal discovery rules, anything that may be relevant to decide the case may be discoverable, subject to privileges that parties may assert.

In February 2018, Secretary Mattis released a report, purportedly compiled by a task force of senior military personnel and experts whom Mattis did not identify, discussing transgender military service and recommending a policy that differed in many respects from the absolute ban Trump had announced.  Under this proposed policy, the enlistment ban would be relaxed for transgender people who have not been diagnosed with gender dysphoria and are willing to serve in their gender as identified at birth.  The policy would allow transgender people who were serving to continue doing so.  Those who were transitioning as of the date the policy was implemented would be allowed to complete their transition and serve in their desired gender.  Otherwise, transgender personnel would have to serve in their gender as identified at birth, and would be separated from the service if they were diagnosed with gender dysphoria.  Nobody would be allowed to initiate transition while in the military once this policy was implemented.  There was no guarantee that transgender personnel would be allowed re-enlist at the end of their term of enlistment unless they met the same standards as a new applicant.  In short, the proposed policy would allow some transgender people to serve, but not all who were otherwise qualified, and would place certain restrictions on those who were allowed to continue serving.

Trump’s response to the recommendation was to revoke his prior policy announcements and to authorize Mattis to implement what became known as the Mattis Plan.  However, all the preliminary injunctions were still in place, so the government concentrated on getting the injunctions dissolved or withdrawn and getting the district judges to dismiss the cases on the ground that the policy they were attacking no longer existed.  The district judges resisted this move, some appeals were taken to the courts of appeals, and ultimately the Mattis Plan was implemented more than a year after it was proposed to the president, when the Supreme Court cut through the procedural difficulties and ruled, without a written opinion, that the Mattis Plan could go into effect while the lawsuits continued.

The focus of the lawsuits now switched to challenge the constitutionality of the Mattis Plan, and the parties went back to battling about discovery after it was clear that the district courts would not dismiss these lawsuits merely because one plan had been substituted for another.  Although some transgender people can serve under the Mattis Plan, the Plan still discriminates both against transgender people who have been diagnosed with gender dysphoria and against those who have not by requiring them to forego obtaining a diagnosis and transitioning if they want to serve.

One of the issues for Judge Kollar-Kotelly was deciding whether the government was correct to argue that because the Mattis Plan resulted from a Task Force study and recommendation process, it was entitled to standard military deference, under which courts disclaim the power to second-guess the personnel policies the military adopts.  The government focused particularly on a concurring opinion in the D.C. Circuit panel opinion that had quashed the preliminary injunction in this case, which arguably supported the view that plaintiffs were not entitled to discovery of documents and testimony related to the “deliberative process” by which the Mattis Plan was devised.

The judge responded that this was the central issue of the case: whether the Mattis Plan is entitled to standard military deference.  She found that the concurring judge, Stephen Williams, was alone in his view, as the other two members of the D.C. Circuit panel, faithful to Supreme Court precedents, had not opposed discovery, find that the deference question turned on whether the Mattis Plan is “the result of reasoned decision-making” that relates to military readiness concerns.  If, as the plaintiffs suspect and have argued all along, Trump’s motivation in banning transgender military service was motivated by politics, not by any evidence that the Ashton Carter policy had harmed the military by allowing unqualified people to serve, it would not be the result of “reasoned decision-making “and thus not entitled to deference.

Agreeing with the plaintiffs, Judge Kollar-Kotelly wrote that she could not decide the appropriate level of deference (or non-deference) without access to information about how the Mattis Plan was devised.  Thus discovery should continue ,focused on that.  However, she rejected the plaintiffs’ argument that they should be allowed to conduct discovery on Mattis’s initial decision to delay enlistments for six months, or on the process by which Trump formulated the July 2017 total ban announced in his tweet and elaborated in the White House’s August 2017 memorandum. Those, she found, are no longer relevant when the focus of the lawsuit has shifted to the constitutionality of the Mattis Plan.

As to that, however, the judge ruled that the government’s attempt to shield access to relevant information under the “deliberative process privilege” was not applicable to this case.  Just as the current state of the record is inadequate to determine the level of deference, discovery of the deliberative process by which the Mattis Plan was devised is necessary to determine whether it is the “result of reasoned decision-making.”

The judge reviewed a checklist of factors created by the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals in earlier cases to determine whether the deliberative process privilege should be set aside in a particular case, and found that the plaintiffs’ requests checked all the necessary boxes.  The information is essential to decide the case, it is not available elsewhere than from the government, and the court can use various procedures to ensure that information that needs to be kept confidential can be protected from general exposure through limitations on who can see it, known as protective orders.  Furthermore, the parties can apply to the court for determination of whether any particular document need not be disclosed in discovery on grounds of relevance.

The government was particularly reluctant to comply with the plaintiffs’ request for “raw data and personnel files.”  The plaintiffs sought this in order to determine whether the factual claims made in the Task Force Report are based on documented facts, especially the claims in the Report that allowing persons who have been diagnosed with gender dysphoria to serve will be harmful to military readiness because of limitations on deployment during transitioning and geographical limitations on deployment due to ongoing medical issues after transition.  Critics have pointed out that the Report seems to be based more on the kind of propaganda emanating from anti-transgender groups than on a realistic appraisal of the experience in the military since Secretary Carter lifted the former ban effective July 1, 2016.  Since transgender people in various stages of transition have been serving openly for a few years, there are medical and performance records that could be examined to provide such information, but the government has been refusing to disclose it, claiming both that it raises privacy concerns and that disclosure is unnecessary because the Mattis Plan is entitled to deference as a military policy.

The judge found that it should be possible for these records to be discovered by redacting individually identifying information and imposing limitations on who can see the information and how it can be used.  Thus, the privacy concerns raised by the government should not be an impediment.  And this information, once again, is very relevant to the question whether the statements about the service qualifications of transgender people are based on biased opinions rather than facts, thus discrediting the claim that the policy is the result of reasoned decision-making.

The Trump Administration’s strategy in this, as in many other ongoing lawsuits concerning controversial policy decisions, has been to fight against discovery at every stage and to appeal every ruling adverse to them, including trying to “jump over” the courts of appeals to get the Supreme Court to intervene on the government’s behalf, now that Trump has succeeded in fortifying the conservative majority on the Court with the additions of Justices Gorsuch and Kavanaugh.  It would not be surprising if the government seeks to appeal Judge Kollar-Kotelly’s ruling to the D.C. Circuit once again to put off (perhaps permanently) the day when they will have to give up the identities of the Mattis Task Force members and open the books on how this policy – obviously political in its conception and implementation – was conceived.

Of course, if the White House changes hands in January 2021, a Democrat president could reverse the ban in any of its forms with a quick Executive Order restoring Secretary Carter’s policy from 2016.  As the four lawsuits continue to be bogged down in discovery disputes, that may be the way this story eventually ends.  If Trump is re-elected, the story continues to drag out while the Mattis Plan stays in place.

The plaintiffs are represented by a growing army of volunteer big firm attorneys and public interest lawyers from GLAD (GLBTQ Legal Advocates & Defenders) and the National Center for Lesbian Rights.

2nd Circuit Holds That It Was Not “Clearly Established” That Sexual Orientation Discrimination in Public Employment is Actionable Under the Equal Protection Clause Prior to Obergefell and Windsor

Posted on: September 8th, 2019 by Art Leonard No Comments

In the course of deciding an appeal by some supervisory public employees of a district court’s refusal to accord them qualified immunity from a discharged employee’s claim of discrimination because of perceived sexual orientation (that took place in 2010), a panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals stated in Naumovski v. Norris, 2019 U.S. App. LEXIS 23891, 2019 WL 3770193 (Aug. 12, 2019), that it was not then “clearly established” by the Supreme Court or the 2nd Circuit prior to the rulings in U.S. v. Windsor and Obergefell v. Hodges that sexual orientation discrimination is actionable under in a 42 U.S.C. Sec. 1983 claim alleging a violation of the Equal Protection Clause.

The opinion for the panel by Circuit Judge Jose Cabranes suggests that it might be “possible today that sexual orientation discrimination in public employment may be actionable under Section 1983,” but at the time of the conduct challenged in this case “such a constitutional prohibition was not yet ‘clearly established’” so the defendants were entitled to qualified immunity from the claim.  In a footnote, Judge Cabranes acknowledged that as early as 1996, in Romer v. Evans, 517 U.S. 634, and again in 2003, in Lawrence v. Texas, 539 U.S. 558, the Supreme Court “had already begun to scrutinize laws that reflected ‘animosity’ toward gays,” but in this case the plaintiff had not alleged “such class-based animosity or desire to harm.”  He also noted that under Engquist v. Oregon Dept. of Agriculture, 553 U.S. 591 (2008), the plaintiff could not bring a “class of one” equal protection case “simply on the basis that her termination was individually arbitrary.”

On March 10, 2010, Binghamton University’s Athletic Director, James Norris, informed Elizabeth Naumovski, then assistant coach of the women’s basketball team, that she would be discharged if she did not resign.  She resigned and filed her discrimination charges with the NY State Division of Human Rights and the EEOC.  After exhausting administrative remedies against the school, she filed suit in federal court, adding discrimination claims under the Constitution against the Athletic Director and the Head Coach of the team as well as the university employer.  Norris and Scholl sought unsuccessfully to get U.S. District Judge David Hurd to dispose of the claims against them on grounds of qualified immunity, as part of his overall ruling on motions for summary judgment, and this appeal to the 2nd Circuit concerns Judge Hurd’s failure to grant their motions, which he implicitly did by denying them summary judgment.

Naumovski, a single woman in her thirties, became the subject of rumors concerning her possible relationship with a woman on the team, identified in the opinion as J.W.  Complaints from other students that Naumovski was showing favoritism to this woman came to the head coach and the then-assistant athletic director, James Norris, who, according to Judge Cabranes, “states that he understood the rumors to refer to a relationship of favoritism between a coach and a student-athlete, rather than to a sexual relationship between the two.”  Norris discussed these rumors with the Athletic Director, “who assured him that the allegations were the baseless fabrications of disgruntled former members of the Binghamton Athletics community.”  Norris was promoted to the athletic directorship on September 30, 2009.

In response to the persisting rumors during the fall term of 2009, Head Coach Nicole Scholl “imposed various restrictions on interactions between coaches and student-athletes to avoid any perception of impropriety.”  According to Naumovski’s allegations, “As a result of the increased scrutiny triggered by these restrictions, Naumovski began to suffer from depression and stress-induced weight loss.” She met with Norris to address the rumors, and claims he told her that “your problem is that you’re a single female in your mid-30s,” implying that the rumors were due to a perception that she was a lesbian.  Norris denies having made that comment, a potential material fact in the overall scheme of the litigation, in terms of the school’s potential liability.

The rumors persisted into 2010, as Norris continued to receive complaints about “favoritism” by Naumovski towards J.W. Friction developed between Naumovski and Head Coach Scholl, who felt that “Naumovski was trying to undermine her leadership of the team.”  Wrote Cabranes, “Naumovski does not deny tension between herself and Scholl; rather, she claims that any such tension ceased after a February 9, 2010 meeting with Scholl.  Naumovski further claims that Scholl and Norris never expressed any additional concerns about her coaching performance after that time.”  However, during a phone call on February 21, Scholl and Norris agreed that Naumovski’s employment should be terminated at the end of the basketball season in March. “The decision was purportedly based on Naumovski’s demonstrated favoritism toward certain student-athletes and the disruptive impact of her workplace conflicts with Scholl,” writes Cabrances, relating the defendants’ claims.  Meanwhile, Norris continued to receive student complaints and things came to a head when J.W.’s family received “an anonymous, vulgar letter accusing her of ‘screwing’ Naumovski,” which J.W. told Naumovksi about, and which led J.W.’s mother to call Norris; it is disputed whether the letter was mentioned in that phone call.  However, a week after that call, Norris informed Naumovski that she was being fired for performance reasons, but she could resign to forestall being fired, which she did.

Naumovski’s suit alleges discrimination based on her sex, perceived sexual orientation, and national origin (Canadian), in violation of Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972, the Equal Protection Clause and the First Amendment (42 USC 1983), as well as the NY Constitution and NY Human Rights Law.  Defendants moved for summary judgment after discovery.  “The motion remained pending for several years,” write Cabranes, not being decided until April 17, 2018, when District Judge Hurd granted summary judgment to Binghamton University and the State University of New York on all constitutional claims but allowed statutory claims to proceed to trial. (Perhaps Judge Hurd was waiting to rule on the motions for a final resolution by the Circuit of whether sexual orientation claims are actionable under Title VII, which emerged with the Zarda v. Altitude Express en banc ruling in February 2018.) As to the individual defendants, Scholl and Norris, Hurd dismissed all claims except for Naumovski’s sex-based disparate treatment and hostile work environment claims under 42 USC 1983 (Equal Protection), failing to address the issue of their qualified immunity from constitutional claims even though they sought to invoke immunity in their summary judgment motion.  Judge Hurd subsequently denied a motion by Norris and Scholl for reconsideration on the immunity argument as untimely under local rules, asserting that it did not raise any new issues, and they appealed to the 2nd Circuit.

Judge Cabranes devoted considerable space in his opinion to explaining the different proof requirements on the statutory claims and the constitutional claims.  In particular, he noted, under Title VII, the plaintiff can win by showing that her sex or perceived sexual orientation was a “motivating factor” for discrimination, but on the constitutional equal protection claim, her burden would be to show that it was a “but-for” factor.  He also devoted a portion of the opinion to itemizing the various other ways in which the statutory and constitutional claims receive different treatment, finding that the district court seems to have conflated the two separate modes of analysis in its decision.  Furthermore, he pointed out that the statutory claims under employment discrimination law run only against the institutional employer, not against individuals, while the constitutional claims could be asserted against individuals who are “state actors,” but who enjoy qualified immunity from personal liability unless it is “clearly established” by appellate precedent that the discrimination with which they are charged is, if proven, unconstitutional.

Turning to the subject of the appeal, Judge Hurd’s implicit denial (or failure to recognize) qualified immunity from the constitutional claims for Norris and Scholl, Cabranes noted that the 2nd Circuit’s review of the district court’s “implicit” rejection of the qualified immunity claims “is complicated by several factors.  First, the District Court never addressed the claims of qualified immunity in its Memorandum-Decision and Order; it is therefore impossible to review its specific reasoning in denying relief on this ground.  Second, while both the Complaint and the District Court’s Memorandum-Decision and Order conclude that Defendants’ alleged conduct constitutes sex discrimination (either through disparate treatment or subjection to a hostile environment), neither explains precisely how Defendants’ conduct can be so construed.  Third, the District Court opinion conflates its analysis of Naumovski’s Title VII and Sec. 1983 claims, rendering our task of reviewing only the Sec. 1983 claims more difficult.”  Attempting to “reconstruct the logic” of the District Court’s denial of immunity to Scholl and Norris on the constitutional claims, the court concluded that “no theory can sustain the District Court’s implicit denial of Defendant’s qualified immunity.”

First addressing the sex discrimination claim, the court found that there was a lack of evidentiary allegations to support the claim, apart from Naumovski’s allegation about Norris’s remark concerning her status as a single woman in her 30s, which the court concluded did not “constitute sufficient evidence to make out a case of employment discrimination,” characterizing it as “the sort of ‘stray remark’ that is insufficient to support an inference of discriminatory intent.”  While Judge Hurd referred to “other indicia” of discrimination intent, the appeals court was not convinced:  “The only ‘other indicia,’ however, is evidence suggesting that Scholl and Norris interpreted the rumors as alleging a sexual relationship between Naumovski and J.W., rather than mere favoritism from one to the other.  The invocation of such evidence is unavailing.  Even if we assume Scholl and Norris interpreted the allegations against Naumovski as sexual in nature, that fact provides no additional support for a conclusion that Scholl’s and Norris’s own actions were based on discriminatory animus toward women in general or any subcategory of female employees in particular,” wrote Cabranes.  Thus, the conclusion that summary judgment should have been granted on the sex discrimination claim.

The court also discussed the possibility that Naumovski could succeed on a sex-stereotyping claim; i.e., “Norris and Scholl stereotyped Naumovski based on her sex (possibly in combination with other characteristics) as more likely to have engaged in a romantic or sexual relationship with J.W.  Defendants then fired Naumovski (at least in part) because of their wrongful and discriminatory belief that she engaged in sexual impropriety with a student and, subsequently, attempted to conceal that stereotyping played any role in their termination decision.”  While the court agreed that such a theory might work in some cases, “Naumovski cannot succeed on such a theory” because of the “but-for” proof requirement for a constitutional violation.  In order to prevail, “Naumovski must establish that a reasonable jury could find that Defendants would not have terminated her based on their stated reasons alone.  To be sure, there may well be cases in which misconduct findings based on sex stereotyping meet the ‘but-for’ discrimination standard,” Cabranes continued.  “Here, however, we do not think that the evidence, even construed in the light most favorable to Naumovski, satisfies that standard.”  Cabranes gives an extended explanation for this conclusion, noting in particular that “Naumovski does not materially dispute that Scholl’s personality and coaching style clashed with her own,” which on its own would be a legitimate reason to let go an assistant coach who was an at-will employee.

Turning to the perceived sexual orientation discrimination claim, Cabranes came to the issue of most direct relevance to Law Notes: whether public officials enjoy qualified immunity from constitutional liability for discriminating against their employees because of actual or perceived sexual orientation.  He pointed out that if the district court was relying on the 2nd Circuit’s 2018 Zarda decision for this proposition, “it erred for at least two reasons.”  First, Zarda was a statutory interpretation case under Title VII, not a constitutional case, thus the Circuit’s decision that discrimination “because of sex” under Title VII includes discrimination because of sexual orientation was not a ruling the sexual orientation claims should be treated the same as sex discrimination claims under the 14th Amendment.  Second, the conduct at issue in this case (2009-2010) predated Zarda by many years.  Given the 2nd Circuit’s pre-Zarda caselaw, Cabranes pointed out, at the time Naumovski was fired, “the ‘clearly established law’ … was that sexual orientation discrimination was not a subset of sex discrimination.”

“Nor could the District Court rely on freestanding constitutional principles separate from Zarda,” continued Cabranes.  “To date, neither this court nor the Supreme Court has recognized Sec. 1983 claims for sexual orientation discrimination in public employment.  Moreoever, when the conduct in this case occurred, neither of the Supreme Court’s landmark same-sex marriage cases – United States v. Windsor and Obergefell v. Hodges – had been decided.  It was, therefore, not yet clear that all state distinctions based on sexual orientation were constitutionally suspect.”  At this point, Cabranes wrote a footnote acknowledging the existence of Romer and Lawrence, but distinguishing them based on Naumovski’s factual allegations. Cabranes’ opinion does not explicitly state that a public official would not enjoy qualified immunity today from an adverse personnel decision based on sexual orientation, but he implies that after Windsor and Obergefell, “state distinctions based on sexual orientation” are “constitutionally suspect,” a point that some scholars have argued, attempting to give more teeth to Justice Kennedy’s opinions in those cases than some might see in them.  To be clear, neither of those cases explicitly states that government distinctions based on sexual orientation are to be treated the same as sex discrimination cases and enjoy heightened scrutiny under the 14th Amendment.  Justice Kennedy did not employ that vocabulary, and arguably placed more weight on the liberty interest in marriage in those cases.

The court also found that Norris and Scholl would clearly enjoyed qualified immunity from a claim that their decision relied on biased student claims against Naumovski, and also that a constitutionally-based hostile environment claim based on sex or perceived sexual orientation in a public employment context was not clearly actionable under 42 USC 1983, as the precedential basis for such claims has been developed thus far only under Title VII.

Summarizing the Court of Appeals holding, Cabranes wrote that Section 1983 claims for discrimination in employment require plaintiffs to establish that the defendants’ discriminatory intent was a “but-for” cause of the adverse employment action, that because of the intent requirements under the Equal Protection clause, a Section 1983 claim for employment discrimination “cannot be based on a respondeat superior or ‘cat’s paw’ theory to establish a defendant’s liability (thus ruling out liability for Scholl and Norris based on complaints by discriminatory students), and defendants were entitled to qualified immunity because, “even when interpreted in the light most favorable to Naumovski, the record cannot support the conclusion that they violated her ‘clearly established’ constitutional rights.”

Naumovski is represented by A. J. Bosman of Rome, N.Y.  Judge Cabranes was appointed by President Bill Clinton.  The other two judges on the 2nd Circuit panel were Ralph Winter (Reagan) and Renee Raggi (George W. Bush).

9th Circuit Instructs District Court on Next Stage in Trans Military Litigation

Posted on: June 18th, 2019 by Art Leonard No Comments

A three-judge panel of the San Francisco-based U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit issued a ruling on June 14 on several appeals filed by the Justice Department in Karnoski v. Trump, one of the lawsuits challenging President Trump’s transgender military policy.  The result was not a complete win for the government or the plaintiffs, but the case will go forward before U.S. District Judge Marsha J. Pechman in Seattle using different legal tests than those she had employed in issuing the rulings that the government had appealed.  Because one of the other challenges to the policy is pending in a district court in Riverside, California, which is also within the 9th Circuit, the court’s ruling effectively applies to both cases.  Karnoski v. Trump, 2019 U.S. App. LEXIS 17878, 2019 WL 2479442 (9th Cir., June 14, 2019).

Since neither party is likely to be fully satisfied with the ruling, which does not fully embrace either party’s position on the appeals, it is possible that one or both will seek reconsideration by a larger panel of the circuit court.  In the 9th Circuit, such panels consist of the Chief Judge of the Circuit and ten active circuit judges drawn at random, together with any senior judges who sat on the panel.  The panel that issued the June 14 ruling had two senior judges – Raymond C. Fisher and Richard R. Clifton – and one active judge, Conseulo M. Callahan.  Fisher was appointed by Bill Clinton, while Clifton and Callahan were appointed by George W. Bush.  District Judge Pechman was appointed by Bill Clinton.

For purposes of simplicity, this description of where the lawsuit stands will refer to the policy announced by then-Defense Secretary Ashton Carter in June 2016 as the 2016 policy, the policy announced in tweets and a White House memorandum by President Donald Trump in July and August 2017 as the 2017 policy, and the policy recommended to Trump by then-Defense Secretary James Mattis in February 2018 as the 2018 policy.

The 2016 policy ended the long-standing regulatory ban on military service by transgender people, but delayed allowing transgender people to enlist until July 2017.  In June 2017, Secretary Mattis announced that the ban on enlistment would be extended to the end of 2017.  The July tweet and August 2017 memorandum announced a return to the ban on service and enlistment that predated the 2016 policy, but delayed re-implementation of the ban until March 2018, pending submission of an implementation plan to the president by Mattis, while providing that the ban on enlistment would remain in effect.

The plan Mattis recommended in February 2018, and that Trump authorized him to adopt, abandoned the total ban concept and is complicated to explain. The policy attempted to shift its focus, at least in terms of concept, from transgender status to the condition of gender dysphoria as described in the American Psychiatric Association’s Diagnostic and Statistical Manual.  The 2018 plan allows some transgender people to serve under certain conditions, depending upon whether and when they were diagnosed with gender dysphoria, whether and when they intended to transition or had transitioned, and whether they were willing to serve in their gender as identified at birth.  People who had been diagnosed with gender dysphoria were barred from enlisting, and currently serving transgender personnel who had not been diagnosed and initiated the process of transitioning by the time the 2018 policy went into effect could continue serving only if they foreswore transitioning while in the service.  However, those who were serving and had begun transitioning before the 2018 policy went into effect could continue serving in the gender to which they had transitioned.  People who identify as transgender but have not been diagnosed with gender dysphoria and are content to serve in the gender identified at birth can enlist and serve, but must leave the service if they are subsequently diagnosed with gender dysphoria.  The bottom line, which was a motivation for Trump’s initial tweet, is that once the 2018 policy was in place, the military would not be funding sex-reassignment surgery for anyone and people could not transition in the military.

Beginning in August 2017 and continuing through that summer, challengers file four lawsuits challenging the 2017 policy on constitutional grounds in Baltimore, Washington (D.C.), Seattle, and Riverside (California).  All of the major LGBT litigation groups were representing the plaintiff in one or more of the cases.  Within months, each of the federal district judges had granted motions for preliminary injunctions to prevent the 2017 policy from going into effect.  In order to issue the injunctions, all four judges had to find that some or all of the plaintiffs’ legal arguments had a fair chance of succeeding on the merits, and that the injunctions were necessary to prevent irreparable harm to the plaintiffs by preserving the status quo without harming the public interest.  The district judges refused to “stay” their injunctions, and on the east coast they were backed up by the 4th and D.C. Circuits, leading the government to abandon an attempt to appeal the denial of stays for the west coast cases in the 9th Circuit.  The district judges also rejected motions by the government to dismiss the cases.  Thus, on January 1, 2018, the Defense Department was required to accept enlistment applications from transgender people, and the 2016 policy remained in effect for transgender people who were actively serving in the military.

Meanwhile, Secretary Mattis appointed a Task Force as directed by the August 2017 White House memo to prepare a report in support of an implementation policy recommendation, which he submitted to the White House in February 2018, urging the president to revoke the 2017 policy and to allow Mattis to implement his recommended policy.  The Task Force was described in various ways at various times by the government, but the names and titles of the members were not listed in the written report released to the public, and the government has resisted discovery requests for their identity and information about how the Task Force report was prepared.

Once Secretary Mattis had the go-ahead from Trump to implement his recommendation, the Justice Department moved in all four courts to get the preliminary injunctions lifted, arguing that the 2018 policy was sufficiently different from the 2017 policy to render the existing injunctions irrelevant.  All four of the district judges rejected that argument and refused to dissolve or modify their injunctions.  The government appealed and ultimately was able to persuade the Supreme Court earlier this year to stay the injunctions and allow the policy to go into effect early in April. Although the 2018 policyhas been in effect for over two months, there have not been reports about discharges of serving transgender personnel.

Significantly, the 9th Circuit panel implied without ruling that the preliminary injunction against the 2017 policy seemed justified.

Meanwhile, the parties in the four cases were litigating about the plaintiffs’ attempts to conduct discovery on order to surface the information necessary to prove their constitutional claims against the policy.  The government fought the discovery requests doggedly, arguing that the internal workings of its military policy-making should not be subject to disclosure in civil litigation, referring to but not formally invoking concepts of decisional privilege and executive privilege, which courts have recognized to varying extent in prior cases challenging government policies.

In the Karnoski case in Seattle, Judge Pechman was highly skeptical about the government’s arguments, having questioned whether the policies were motivated by politics rather than professional military judgment, and she issued an order for the government to comply with a large portion of the requests for documents and information after prolonged negotiations by the lawyers largely came to naught.  The government appealed her discovery orders to the 9th Circuit, together with refusal to rethink the preliminary injunction in light of the substitution of the 2018 policy for the 2017 policy.

The June 14 opinion describes how the case should go forward, taking account of the Supreme Court’s action in having stayed the preliminary injunctions but not dissolved them.  The 9th Circuit panel agreed with the D.C. Circuit, which had concluded earlier in the year that the D.C. district court was wrong to conclude that the 2018 policy was just a version of the 2017 policy with some exceptions.  The appellate courts held that the 2018 policy recommended by Mattis was no longer the total ban announced in 2017, so the district court should evaluate the 2018 policy.

The court rejected the government’s argument that shifting the exclusionary policy from “transgender status” to “gender dysphoria” eliminated the equal protection issue, finding from the wording of the Task Force report and the policy as summarized in writing by Mattis that the policy continued to target transgender people in various ways, regardless whether they have been diagnosed with gender dysphoria, through the conditions it places on their service.  This was a “win” for the plaintiffs on an important contested point.

Judge Pechman had concluded that gender identity is a “suspect classification,” so for purposes of evaluating the constitutionality of the policy under an Equal Protection challenge, it should be presumed unconstitutional with a heavy burden placed on the government to prove a compelling need for the policy.  The 9th Circuit panel decided there was not sufficient precedent to support that approach, but did agree with the position taken by the district judges in the other three cases that the policy should be subjected to “heightened scrutiny,” similar to the approach courts take in sex discrimination cases, but tempered by consideration of the degree to which the policy merits deference as a product of professional military judgment.

Judge Pechman had concluded that the 2017 policy did not merit judicial deference, because there was no evidence before the court that it was the product of professional military judgment.  Rather, as all the district judges had concluded, based on the way the policy was announced in a surprise tweet and the failure of the government to provide any information about how it was formulated, the court’s analysis should not be tempered by judicial deference.

Now, however, said the 9th Circuit panel, the government had described, in a general way, how Mattis’s Task Force was put together, and t the 2018 policy was allegedly the result of many meetings, study, much interviewing of military personnel, and a 44—page report.  If one accepts the government’s description of the process – still not identifying by name the Task Force members or getting into any real detail about the basis for their conclusions – the court said, there is an argument that the 2018 policy should be accorded judicial deference, but whether to do so, and how that would interrelate with the heightened scrutiny standard, were questions to be addressed by the district court.  Thus, the task for Judge Pechman now is to determine whether the 2018 policy is sufficiently a product of military judgment to justify applying a deferential standard of review.  Some degree of cooperating by the government in the discovery process is crucially necessary for such an analysis to take place.

However, as to discovery, the 9th Circuit panel expressed concern that Judge Pechman had not accorded sufficient weight to the concepts of decisional and executive privilege in formulating her discovery order, and directed that she refer to guidelines set out in some recent court opinions.  In particular, the court disagreed with her order that the government provide detailed privilege logs with descriptions of all the documents for which there were privilege concerns, and suggested that an approach focused on broadly described categories of documents and information could suffice for an initial determination of the degree to which privilege might be claimed to block disclosure.

The bottom line is that the Karnoski case goes back to Judge Pechman for a fresh analysis of whether plaintiffs should be entitled to a preliminary injunction against the 2018 policy, using heightened scrutiny and taking account of privilege claims in the discovery process, along the lines outlined by the court.  This opinion also sends a message to the district court in Riverside, where similar government motions are pending.  Meanwhile, the discovery battles continue in the cases pending in Baltimore and Washington.

In light of the Trump Administration’s general policy of fighting against demands for disclosure of internal executive branch decision-making, whether by Congressional committees or litigants, it is difficult to predict when there will be sufficient discovery to provide a basis for further rulings on preliminary injunctions or the ultimate merits of the four court challenges.  The lawsuits succeed in blocking implementation of the total ban and the 2017 policy, and in delaying implementation of the 2018 policy for more than a year.

The litigation will not be finally resolved before Inauguration Day in January 2021 unless the Trump Administration is willing to negotiate some sort of compromise settlement satisfactory to the plaintiffs.  If any of the current Democratic presidential candidates is elected and takes office, a quickly-issued executive order restoring the 2016 policy could put an end to the entire transgender military service drama and restore sanity to an issue that has been clouded by politics and substantial misinformation, such as Trump’s recent grossly-exaggerated statements about the cost of health care for transgender personnel.

Supreme Court Stays Two Preliminary Injunctions Against Transgender Military Ban, Leaving Only One Injunction in Place

Posted on: January 22nd, 2019 by Art Leonard No Comments

On January 22 the Supreme Court granted applications by Solicitor General Noel Francisco to stay the two nationwide preliminary injunctions that were issued in December 2017 by U.S. District Judges on the West Coast to stop President Donald Trump’s ban on military service by transgender individuals from going into effect. The vote was 5-4, with Justices Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Stephen Breyer, Sonia Sotomayor and Elena Kagan indicating that they would have denied the applications for stays. Although the stays mean that the Trump Administration’s transgender military ban is no longer blocked by those two injunctions, it is still blocked by an injunction issued by a federal judge in Baltimore.

The Supreme Court issued these two stays “pending disposition of the Government’s appeal in the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit and disposition of the Government’s petition for a writ of certiorari, if such writ is sought.” At the same time, the Supreme Court denied the Solicitor General’s petitions to leapfrog the 9th Circuit and take its appeal of the district court actions for direct review. These petitions were practically rendered moot, at least for now, by the Supreme Court’s granting of the stays. When the Court made its announcement at 9:30 am on January 22, the 9th Circuit had not yet ruled, although a three-judge panel heard oral arguments on the government’s appeal several months ago.

The Supreme Court’s action did not immediately allow the Defense Department to implement the ban, however. That awaits a ruling by U.S. District Judge George L. Russell, III, who is still considering the government’s motion to dissolve the nationwide preliminary injunction issued on November 21, 2017, by now-retired U.S. District Judge Marvin J. Garbis in Baltimore in Stone v. Trump. That case was reassigned to Judge Russell after Judge Garbis retired last June. On November 30, Judge Russell issued his only ruling in the case so far, largely affirming an August 14 ruling by Magistrate Judge A. David Copperthite on disputed discovery issues in the case. However, in his November 30 ruling, Judge Russell rejected the government’s contention that certain “findings of fact” by Judge Copperthite were unreasonable. Among those were Copperthite’s finding that the version of the ban announced by Defense Secretary James Mattis in February 2018, which Trump authorized Mattis to put into effect, was still a ban on military service by transgender people, despite differences from the version described by the White House in an August 2017 memorandum.

On January 4, 2019, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit vacated a similar preliminary injunction that was issued on October 31, 2017, by Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly of the District Court in Washington, D.C., and directed Judge Kollar-Kotelly to reconsider her conclusion that the version of the ban that President Trump authorized Mattis to implement was essentially the same ban that she had enjoined. The D.C. Circuit panel unanimously ruled, based on the government’s allegations about the differences in the policies, that her conclusion was “clearly erroneous.” The D.C. Circuit’s ruling was, of course, not binding on Judge Russell, because Maryland is under the jurisdiction of the 4th Circuit Court of Appeals, but it may influence Judge Russell’s consideration of that issue while he ponders how to rule on the government’s motion pending in his court.

The government’s position in all four of the pending cases challenging the constitutionality of the ban has been that the “Mattis Policy” announced in February 2018 was significantly different from the version of the ban described in Trump’s August 2017 Memorandum, and thus that the four preliminary injunctions against the August 2017 version should be vacated as moot.

The government now takes the position that the so-called “Mattis Policy,” which bans service by individuals who have been diagnosed with gender dysphoria, is no longer a categorical ban of all transgender service members, as described in Trump’s notorious tweets of July 26, 2017. For one thing, the Mattis Policy carves out an exception, allowing transgender individuals who are already serving to continue doing so despite being diagnosed with gender dysphoria, although those who have not transitioned when the new policy goes into effect will not be allowed to do so and still remain in the service. (This exception, of course, contradicts the government’s argument that individuals diagnosed with gender dysphoria are not fit to serve.) For another thing, the Defense Department contends that because not all individuals who identify as transgender have either been diagnosed with gender dysphoria or desire to make a medical transition, the basis for the disqualification for military service has effectively been shifted by the Mattis Policy from gender identity to gender dysphoria. As such, the government argues, the district courts’ conclusion that the ban discriminates on the basis of transgender status in violation of Equal Protection no longer applies. Instead, the ban is based on a medical condition, as to which the courts should defer to military expertise, because courts have never second-guessed the military’s determination that people with a diagnosed medical condition may be unfit to serve.

The Supreme Court’s action does not grant the government’s request to dissolve the preliminary injunctions that were issued in December 2017 by District Judges Marsha J. Pechman (Seattle) and Jesus Bernal (Riverside, California), and thus should not be interpreted as taking a position on whether those injunctions should have been issued, but merely agrees to the government’s request to stay their effect while the 9th Circuit decides how to rule on the government’s appeal from those district judges’ denial of the government’s motions to dissolve the injunctions. In the meantime, all four district courts are dealing with contentious arguments as the government refuses to comply with the plaintiffs’ discovery demands, making it difficult for the courts to proceed with the cases. These cases are raising significant issues about the extent to which the government should be forced to disclose details of its decision-making process that are crucial to determining whether the policy they are now defending was adopted for constitutionally impermissible reasons.

Attention now focuses on Judge Russell, whose eventual ruling on the government’s motion to dissolve Judge Garbis’s preliminary injunction will decide, at least for the moment, whether the transgender ban goes into effect or remains blocked while the litigation continues. If Judge Russell follows the lead of the other district judges, he will deny the motion and Solicitor General Francisco will likely petition the Supreme Court to grant a stay similar to the ones issued on January 22. The question now is whether Judge Russell finds the D.C. Circuit’s analysis to be persuasive. If he does, the ban may go into effect, even as all four cases challenging the ban continue to be fiercely litigated by the plaintiffs.

As to the stays issued on January 22, the Supreme Court’s Order says that if the government is dissatisfied with the 9th Circuit’s disposition of its appeals and files new Petitions for Supreme Court review, the stays will remain in effect. If the Court ultimately denies such petitions, “this order shall terminate automatically.” If the Court grants those petitions, the stay would remain in effect until the Supreme Court rules on the appeal.

Trump Administration Suffers More Setbacks in Defending Transgender Military Ban

Posted on: August 14th, 2018 by Art Leonard No Comments

Two federal district judges have issued new rulings in lawsuits challenging the Trump Administration’s ban on military service by transgender individuals, mainly adverse to the government.  [Addendum:  After this was drafted, we received a decision from a federal magistrate judge in Baltimore on discovery issues in one of the other challenged to the transgender ban.  Our summary appears at the end of this posting.]

After the San Francisco-based U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit refused to lift Seattle U.S. District Judge Marsha Pechman’s preliminary injunction against the policy on July 18, she issued a new ruling on July 27 granting the plaintiffs’ motion to compel discovery and denying the government’s motion for a protective order that would shield President Trump from having to respond to any discovery requests.  The Justice Department immediately announced that it would appeal this ruling to the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals.  Judge Pechman had previously denied motions for summary judgment in the case, having found that there was a need for discovery before such a ruling could take place.

On August 6, D.C. District Court Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly, who had issued the first preliminary injunction against the policy last year, issued two decisions. In one, she rejected the government’s request to vacate her preliminary injunction as moot, finding that the plaintiffs have standing to challenge the “new” policy described by Defense Secretary James Mattis in his February 2018 memo to the President, and agreeing with Judge Pechman that the “new” policy is not essentially different from the “old” one announced by President Trump a year ago. However, Judge Kollar-Kotelly granted a motion by the government to dismiss President Trump as an individual named defendant in the case.

Two other lawsuits challenging the policy are pending in federal district courts in Riverside, California, and Baltimore, Maryland. In both cases, the judges have received motions from the parties that are awaiting decision, similar to those filed with Judges Pechman and Kollar-Kotelly.

To recap for those coming late to this story, Trump tweeted a ban on transgender military service on July 26, 2017, and issued a memorandum a month later describing the policy in slightly more detail, charging Secretary Mattis to propose a plan for implementation by late February, 2018, with the goal of implementing the policy later in March. Trump’s memo specified that Mattis’s previous directive to allow transgender applicants to join the military, which had been announced at the end of June 2017 to go into effect on January 1, 2018, was to be indefinitely delayed, as Trump’s policy would not allow transgender people to enlist.  Mattis announced that no action would be taken against now-serving transgender personnel pending the implementation of the policy in March 2018, but there were reports of transgender personnel suffering cancellations of promotions and desire assignments and of planned medical procedures after the policy was announced.

Mattis’s memo to the president in February proposed some modifications to the policy that had been announced in Trump’s August memorandum. Transgender personnel who were already serving and had transitioned and were “stable” in their preferred gender would be allowed to continue serving, based on a determination that the investment in their training outweighed whatever “risk” they posed to the readiness of the military.  Furthermore, transgender individuals who had not transitioned or been diagnosed with “gender dysphoria” would be allowed to enlist and serve, provided they refrained from transitioning and served in the sex identified at birth.  Otherwise, those diagnosed with “gender dysphoria” would be prohibited from enlisting or serving, and those who could not comply with these requirements would be discharged.  The proposal was based on a “finding” by a rigged special committee apparently dominated by committed opponents of transgendered service that allowing transgender people to serve in the military was harmful to the operational efficiency of the service – a finding based on no factual evidence and oblivious to the fact that transgender people had been serving openly without any problems since the Obama Administration lifted the prior ban at the end of June 2016.

Four lawsuits had been filed in response to the summer 2017 policy announcement, and in a matter of months the four district courts had issued preliminary injunctions, having found it likely that the plaintiffs would prevail on their argument that the policy violates the Equal Protection requirements of the 5th Amendment of the Bill of Rights. As compelled by the preliminary injunctions, the Defense Department allowed transgender people to submit applications to enlist beginning January 1, 2018, after losing a last-ditch court battle to continue the enlistment ban, but there were reports that the applications they received were getting very slow processing, and all indications are that few have been accepted for service.

Trump responded to Mattis’s February 2018 memo by “withdrawing” his prior memo and tweet, and authorizing Mattis to adopt the implementation plan he was recommending by late March. The Justice Department then filed motions in all the lawsuits seeking to lift the preliminary injunctions. Their argument was, in part, that the “new” policy was sufficiently different from the one that had been “withdrawn” as to moot the lawsuits. They further contended that the plaintiffs who were already serving and would be allowed to continue serving under the “new” policy no longer had standing to challenge the policy in court.  The Department also argued that plaintiff’s attempts to conduct discovery in the case should be put on hold until there was a definitive appellate ruling on their motion to lift the preliminary injunctions.

On April 13, Judge Pechman rejected the government’s motion to lift the preliminary injunction, having already ordered that discovery proceed. In his initial tweet, Trump had claimed that he had consulted with generals and other experts before adopting the policy, but the identities of these people were not revealed, and the government has stonewalled against any attempt to discover their identities or any internal executive branch documents that might have been generated on this issue, making generalized claims of executive privilege.  Similarly, the February memorandum released under Mattis’s name did not identify any of the individuals responsible for its composition, and naturally the plaintiffs are also seeking to discover who was involved in putting it together and what information they purported to rely upon.

Judge Pechman’s July 27 order to compel discovery specified the materials sought by the plaintiffs, and pointed out that under federal evidentiary rules, any claim of privilege against disclosure is subject to evaluation by the court. “The deliberative privilege is not absolute,” she wrote.  “Several courts have recognized that the privilege does not apply in cases involving claims of governmental misconduct or where the government’s intent is at issue.”

The question, under 9th Circuit precedents, is “whether plaintiffs’ need for the materials and the need for accurate fact-finding override the government’s interest in non-disclosure.  In making this determination, relevant factors include: (1) the relevance of the evidence; (2) the availability of other evidence; (3) the government’s role in the litigation; and (4) the extent to which disclosure would hinder frank and independent discussion regarding contemplated policies and decisions.”  There is a formal process for invoking privilege, which requires the government to “provide precise and certain reasons for preserving the confidentiality of designated material.”

In this case, Judge Pechman had previously determined that discrimination because of gender identity involves a “suspect classification” for purposes of equal protection requirements, which means the government has the burden of proving that there is a compelling justification for the discrimination. In this case, however, the government has articulated only a generalized judgment that service by transgender individuals is too “risky” based on no facts whatsoever.  Judge Pechman concluded in granting the plaintiffs’ discovery motion that “the deliberative process privilege does not apply in this case.”

The government had moved for a protective order “precluding discovery directed at President Trump.” While conceding that Trump has “not provided substantive responses or produced a privilege log” listing specifically what information has to be protected against disclosure, the government contended that “because the requested discovery raises ‘separation of powers concerns,’ Plaintiffs must exhaust discovery ‘from sources other than the President and his immediate White House advisors and staff’ before he is required to formally invoke the privilege.”

Judge Pechman noted that so far the government has refused to provide any information about how the policy decision was made or developed, and has failed to identify the specific documents and other information for which it claims privilege. In a footnote, she commented, “The Court notes that Defendants have steadfastly refused to identify even one general or military official President Trump consulted before announcing the ban.”  Thus, she found, there was no basis for the court to evaluate “whether the privilege applies and if so, whether Plaintiffs have established a showing of need sufficient to overcome it.”  Indeed, she concluded in a prior decision, as far as the record stands, it looks as if Trump made the whole thing up himself without relying on any military expertise. Thus, she has preliminarily rejected the government’s contention that the policy would enjoy the deference normally extended to military policies adopted based on the specialized training and expertise of the military policy makers.

Judge Kollar-Kotelly’s August 6 ruling focused on an issue that Judge Pechman had previously decided: whether the plaintiffs had standing to continue challenging the policy after Mattis’s memo supplanted the “withdrawn” earlier policy announcements. She had little trouble in determining that all the plaintiffs, even those who are currently-serving transgender personnel who would be allowed to consider serving under the “new” policy, still had standing, which requires a finding that implementing the policy would cause them harm.

“The Court rejects Defendants’ argument that Plaintiffs no longer have standing because they are not harmed by the Mattis Implementation Plan,” she wrote, stating that “the effect of that plan would be that individuals who require or have undergone gender transition would be absolutely disqualified from military service, individuals with a history or diagnosis of gender dysphoria would be largely disqualified from military service, and, to the extent that there are any individuals who identify as ‘transgender’ but do not fall under the first two categories, they would be allowed to serve, but only ‘in their biological sex’ (which means that openly transgender persons would generally not be allowed to serve in conformance with their identity.)” Furthermore, those who have already transitioned and are now serving would be doing so under the stigma of having been labeled as “unfit” for military service and presenting an undue risk to military readiness, and would likely suffer prejudice in terms of their assignments and their treatment by fellow military personnel, as well as emotional harm.

“The Mattis Implementation Plan sends a blatantly stigmatizing message to all members of the military hierarchy that has a unique and damaging effect on a narrow and identifiable set of individuals, of which Plaintiffs are members,” she wrote. They would be serving “pursuant to an exception to a policy that explicitly marks them as unfit for service.  No other service members are so afflicted.  These Plaintiffs are denied equal treatment because they will be the only service members who are allowed to serve only based on a technicality; as an exception to a policy that generally paints them as unfit.”

She concluded that “because their stigmatic injury derives from this unequal treatment, it is sufficient to confer standing.” She pointed out that beyond stigmatization, the Implementation Plan “creates a substantial risk that Plaintiffs will suffer concrete harms to their careers in the near future.  There is a substantial risk that the plan will harm Plaintiffs’ career development in the form of reduced opportunities for assignments, promotion, training, and deployment.  These harms are an additional basis for Plaintiffs’ standing.”  She rejected the government’s contention that these harms were only “speculative.”

Furthermore, she rejected the claim that Trump’s “withdrawal” of his August 2017 memorandum and the substitution of the Mattis Implementation Plan made the existing lawsuits moot, agreeing with Judge Pechman that the “new” plan was merely a method of “implementing” the previously announced policy. She found that the Implementation Plan “prevents service by transgender individuals,” just as Trump had directed in August 2017, and the minor deviations from the complete categorical ban were not significant enough to make it substantially different.

Thus she refused to dissolve the preliminary injunction. She refrained from ruling on motions for summary judgment on the merits of the equal protection claim, because there are sharply contested facts in this case and no discovery has taken place, so it can’t be decided purely as a matter of law. The facts count here in court, even if they don’t seem to count in the White House or the Defense Department.

However, Judge Kollar-Kotelly granted the government’s motion to partially dissolve the injunction as it applies personally to Trump, and granted the motion to “dismiss the President himself as a party to this case. Throughout this lawsuit,” she wrote, “Plaintiffs ask this Court to enjoin a policy that represents an official, non-ministerial act of the President, and declare that policy unlawful.  Sound separation-of-power principles counsel the Court against granting these forms of relief against the President directly.”  Thus, she concluded, there was no reason to retain Trump as a defendant.  If the Plaintiffs prevail on the merits, an injunction aimed at the Defense Department’s leadership preventing the policy from taking effect will provide complete relief.

The Plaintiffs complained that removing Trump from the case as a defendant would undermine their attempt to discover the information necessary to make their case, since individuals who are parties to litigation are particularly susceptible to discovery requests. The judge wrote that “it would not be appropriate to retain the President as a party to this case simply because it will be more complicated to seek discovery from him if he is dismissed.  To the extent that there exists relevant and appropriate discovery related to the President, Plaintiffs will still be able to obtain that discovery despite the President not being a party to the case.”  And, she concluded, “Plaintiffs will be able to enforce their legal rights and obtain all relief sought in this case without the President as a party.”

The judge treated as moot the Defendants’ motion for a protective order shielding Trump from having to respond to discovery requests. “However,” she wrote, “the Court reiterates that dismissing the President as a party to this case does not mean that Plaintiffs are prevented from pursuing discovery related to the President.  The court understands that the parties dispute whether discovery related to the President which has been sought by Plaintiffs is precluded by the deliberative process or presidential communication privileges, and the Court makes no ruling on those disputes at this point. The Court will be issuing further opinions addressing other dispositive motions that have been filed in this case.  After all of those opinions have been issued, if necessary, the Court will give the parties further guidance on the resolution of the discovery requests in this case.”  In a footnote, Judge Kollar-Kotelly noted Judge Pechman’s July 27 discovery order, and that defendants were appealing it to the 9th Circuit.  The judge emphasized that the preliminary injunction remains in effect for all of the remaining defendants in the case, so the policy may not be implemented while the case continues.

The possibility that Trump will be ordered to submit to questioning under oath in at least one of these cases remains a reality, but any attempt by the Plaintiffs to do so would undoubtedly arouse spirited opposition from the Defense Department, officially based on claims of privilege, but realistically due to the likelihood that Trump would perjure himself under such questioning. Recall the historical precedent:  The House of Representatives voted to impeach President Clinton based, in part, on the charge that he committed perjury during questioning before a grand jury by the Special Counsel investigating his affair with Monica Lewinski.  Thus, at least in that case, the House considered presidential perjury to be an impeachable offense.

Plaintiffs in the Seattle case, Karnoski v. Trump (in which the president remains a defendant), are represented by Lambda Legal and pro bono attorneys from Kirkland & Ellis. Plaintiffs in the D.C. case, Jane Doe 2 v. Trump, are represented by the National Center for Lesbian Rights, GLBTQ Legal Advocates & Defenders (GLAD), and pro bono attorneys from Wilmer Cutler Pickering Hale & Dorr LLP and Foley Hoag LLP.

Addendum:

On August 14, U.S. Magistrate Judge A. David Copperthite, to whom Baltimore U.S. District Judge Marvin J. Garbis had referred discovery matters in Stone v. Trump, another one of the pending cases, issued a ruling granting in part the plaintiffs’ motion to compel discovery of deliberative materials regarding Trump’s July 2017 tweet, August 2017 memorandum, the “activities of the DoD’s so-called panel of experts and its working groups” who put together the memorandum ultimately submitted by Mattis to the President in February 2018, and deliberative materials regarding that Implementation Plan and the President’s March memorandum, “including any participation or interference in that process by anti-transgender activists and lobbyists.” However, noting that a motion is pending before Judge Garbis to dismiss Trump as a defendant in the case, Judge Copperthite declined to rule on the government’s request for a protective order that would shield Trump from having to respond to discovery requests directed to him, “pending the resolution of the motion to dismiss President Trump as a party.”  Cooperthite wrote that “no interrogatories or document requests will be directed to President Trump as a party, but may be directed to other parties pursuant to this Memorandum Opinion.  If the Motion to Dismiss is denied, the Court will revisit the issue of the protective order as to President Trump.”

Cooperthite faced a practical dilemma in dealing with the government’s requests to shield Trump from discovery. “On July 27, 2017, President Trump tweeted transgender persons would no longer be able to serve in the military and as for any deliberative process, simply stated this policy occurred after consulting with ‘my Generals and military experts.’  There is no evidence to support the concept that ‘my Generals and military experts’ would have the information Plaintiffs request.  There is no evidence provided to this Court that ‘my Generals and military experts’ are identified, in fact do exist, or that they would be included in document requests and interrogatories propounded to the Executive Branch, excluding the President.  By tweeting his decisions to the world, the President has, in fact narrowed the focus of Plaintiffs’ inquiries to the President himself.  The Presidential tweets put the President front and enter as the potential discriminating official.”  So there is a real question whether discovery that doesn’t include President Trump is at all meaningful, since the ultimate legal question in the litigation is the intent of the government in adopting the ban which is, at bottom, Trump’s intent.  On the other hand, discovery directed at President Trump raises serious questions about separation of powers and the traditional respect for the confidentiality of internal White House policy deliberations.

“So many factors are unknown at this juncture in the litigation,” wrote Copperthite. “It is unknown whether Plaintiffs can obtain the information necessary from the non-Presidential discovery to define the ‘intent’ of the government with respect to the transgender ban.  Defendants offer as an alternative, a stay of discovery with respect to the President, until the Motion to Dismiss the President as a party is decided.  If the President, as the discriminating official, tweeted his transgender ban sua sponte as alleged, this Court sees no alternative to obtaining the intent of the government other than denying the protective order with respect to President Trump.”  However, he wrote, precedents “instruct this Court to give deference to the executive branch because ‘occasions for constitutional confrontation between the two branches should be avoided whenever possible.’”  Thus, Copperthite decided to put off deciding the protective order issue until after Judge Garbis decides whether to dismiss Trump as a party, but for now will order the defendants only to comply with discovery requests directed to defendants other than Trump, Secretary Mattis and the Secretaries of the various military branches.

Arizona Appeals Court Cites Masterpiece Cakeshop Decision to Rule Out 1st Amendment Exemptions for Stationary Company

Posted on: June 11th, 2018 by Art Leonard No Comments

The precedential meaning of a Supreme Court decision depends on how lower courts interpret it.  The media reported the Supreme Court’s Masterpiece Cakeshop ruling as a “win” for baker Jack Phillips, since the court reversed the discrimination rulings against him by the Colorado Court of Appeals and the Colorado Civil Rights Commission.  But the opinion has a deeper significance than a superficial “win” or “loss” can capture, as the Arizona Court of Appeals demonstrated just days later in its rejection of a claim that a company that designs artwork for weddings and other special events can refuse to design and provide goods for same-sex weddings.

 

Alliance Defending Freedom (ADF), the same anti-LGBT legal outfit that represented Jack Phillips before the Supreme Court, represents Brush & Nib Studio, LC, a for-profit company that sells both pre-fabricated and specially designed artwork.  The company provides retail goods and services to the public, so it comes within the coverage of the city of Phoenix, Arizona’s, public accommodations anti-discrimination ordinance.

 

Although Brush & Nib had not received any requests to produce invitations for a same-sex wedding since such marriages became legal in Arizona, the owners had determined, based on their religious beliefs, that they would not provide their goods and services for such ceremonies.  Represented by ADF, they sued in the state trial court in Phoenix, seeking a preliminary injunction to bar enforcement of the ordinance against them in case such a customer should materialize in the future.

 

As described in the Court of Appeals’ opinion by Judge Lawrence F. Winthrop, the owners “believe their customer-directed and designed wedding products ‘convey messages about a particular engaged couple, their upcoming marriage, their upcoming marriage ceremony, and the celebration of that marriage.”  And they did not want any part of it.  They “also strongly believe in an ordained marriage between one man and one woman, and argue that they cannot separate their religious beliefs from their work.  As such, they believe being required to create customer-specific merchandise for same-sex weddings will violate their religious beliefs.”

 

They not only wanted to be assured that they could reject such business without risking legal liability; they also wanted to post a public statement explaining their religious beliefs, including a statement that they would not create any artwork that “promotes any marriage except marriage between one man and one woman.”  They haven’t posted such a statement yet out of concern that it would violate a provision of the Phoenix ordinance, which forbids a business from posting or making any communication that “states or implies that any facility or services shall be refused or restricted because of . . . sexual orientation . . . ,  or that any person, because of . . . sexual orientation . . . would be unwelcome, objectionable, unacceptable, undesirable, or not solicited.”

 

Maricopa County Superior Court Judge Karen Mullins rejected the motion for preliminary injunction, finding that the business did not enjoy a constitutional exemption.  The Court of Appeals held up ruling on ADF’s appeal until the Supreme Court issued its Masterpiece Cakeshop ruling on June 4, then quickly incorporated references to it into the opinion by Judge Winthrop issued on June 7.

 

After reviewing the unbroken string of state appellate court rulings from around the country that have rejected religious and free speech exemption claims in such cases over the past several years, Judge Winthrop wrote: “In light of these cases and consistent with the United States Supreme Court’s decisions, we recognize that a law allowing Appellants to refuse service to customers based on sexual orientation would constitute a ‘grave and continuing harm,’” citing the Supreme Court’s marriage equality ruling, Obergefell v. Hodges.

 

He continued with a lengthy quote from Justice Anthony Kennedy’s opinion for the Supreme court in Masterpiece Cakeshop:

“Our society has come to the recognition that gay persons and gay couples cannot be treated as social outcasts or as inferior in dignity and worth. For that reason the laws and the Constitution can, and in some instances must, protect them in the exercise of their civil rights. The exercise of their freedom on terms equal to others must be given great weight and respect by the courts. At the same time, the religious and philosophical objections to gay marriage are protected views and in some instances protected forms of expression. As this Court observed in Obergefell v. Hodges, ‘[t]he First Amendment ensures that religious organizations and persons are given proper protection as they seek to teach the principles that are so fulfilling and so central to their lives and faiths.’ Nevertheless, while those religious and philosophical objections are protected, it is a general rule that such objections do not allow business owners and other actors in the economy and in society to deny protected persons equal access to goods and services under a neutral and generally applicable public accommodations law. See Newman v. Piggy [Piggie] Park Enterprises, Inc. (1968) (per curiam); see also Hurley v. Irish–American Gay, Lesbian and Bisexual Group of Boston, Inc. (1995) (‘Provisions like these are well within the State’s usual power to enact when a legislature has reason to believe that a given group is the target of discrimination, and they do not, as a general matter, violate the First or Fourteenth Amendments’).”

 

The cases cited by Justice Kennedy in the quoted paragraph evidently sent a strong message for lower courts. Piggie Park is a classic early decision under the Civil Rights Act of 1964, holding that a restaurant owner’s religious opposition to racial integration could not excuse him from serving people of color in his barbecue restaurant.  Hurley was the famous St. Patrick’s Day Parade case from Boston, where the Supreme Court upheld the 1st Amendment right of parade organizers to exclude a gay Irish group from marching under their own banner proclaiming their gay identity.  The quoted language from that decision made clear that state’s may pass laws forbidding sexual orientation discrimination by businesses, but in this case the Court found that the parade organizers were not a business selling goods and services, but rather the non-profit organizers of an expressive activity who had a right to determine what their activity would express.

 

The points are clear: States can forbid businesses from discriminating against customers because of their sexual orientation, and businesses with religious objections will generally have to comply with the non-discrimination laws. The “win” for baker Jack Phillips involved something else entirely: the Supreme Court’s perception that Colorado’s Civil Rights Commission did not give Phillips a fair hearing because members of the Commission made public statements denigrating his religious beliefs at the hearing.  Justice Kennedy insisted for the court that a litigant’s dignity requires that the tribunal deciding his case be neutral and not overtly hostile to his religious beliefs, and that was the reason for reversing the state court and the state agency.  Kennedy’s discussion of the law clearly pointed in the other direction, as Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg observed in her dissent.  And the Arizona Court of Appeals clearly got that message.

 

Turning to ADF’s free speech argument, Justice Winthrop wrote, “Appellants argue that [the ordinance] compels them to speak in favor of same-sex marriages. We disagree.  Although [it] may have an incidental impact on speech, its main purpose is to prohibit discrimination, and thus [it] regulates conduct, not speech.”

 

The court found this case similar to Rumsfeld v. FAIR, a case in which the Supreme Court rejected a free speech challenge by an organization of law schools to a federal law that required schools to host military recruiters at a time when the Defense Department’s policies discriminated against gay people. The law schools claimed that complying with the law would violate their 1st Amendment rights, but the Supreme Court said that the challenged law did not limit what the schools could say, rather what they could do; that is, conduct, not speech.

 

“We find Rumsfeld controlling in this case,” wrote Winthrop. The court found that the “primary purpose” of the city ordinance is to “prohibit places of public accommodation from discriminating based on certain protected classes, i.e., sexual orientation, not to compel speech. . .  Like Rumsfeld, [the ordinance] requires that places of public accommodation provide equal services if they want to operate their business.  While such a requirement may impact speech, such as prohibiting places of public accommodation from posting signs that discriminate against customers, this impact is incidental to property regulated conduct.”

 

Further distinguishing this case from the Hurley decision, the court said that requiring the business to comply with the law “does not render their creation of design-to-order merchandise for same-sex weddings expressive conduct. The items Appellants would produce for a same-sex or opposite-sex wedding would likely be indistinguishable to the public.  Take for instance an invitation to the marriage of Pat and Pat (whether created for Patrick and Patrick, or Patrick and Patricia), or Alex and Alex (whether created for Alexander and Alexander, or Alexander and Alexa).  This invitation would not differ in creative expression.  Further, it is unlikely that a general observer would attribute a company’s product or offer of services, in compliance with the law, as indicative of the company’s speech or personal beliefs.  The operation of a stationery store – including the design and sale of customized wedding event merchandise – is not expressive conduct, and thus, is not entitled to First Amendment free speech protection.”

 

The court also rejected an argument that the ordinance violated the right of expressive association. “We do not dispute that some aspects of Appellants’ operation of Brush & Nib may implicated speech in some regard,” wrote Justice Winthrop, “but the primary purpose of Brush & Nib is not to convey a particular message but rather to engage in commercial sales activity.  Thus, Appellants’ operation of Brush & Nib is not the type of expressive association that the First Amendment is intended to protect.”  Certainly not like a parade, which the court in Hurley described as a “quintessential” expressive activity.

 

However, the court found that the portion of the ordinance dealing with forbidden communications used vague language that was overbroad and unclear about which statements might constitute violations. “We are unable to interpret [the ordinance’s] use of the words ‘unwelcome,’ ‘objectionable,’ ‘unacceptable,’ and ‘undesirable’ in a way that would render [it] constitutional,” wrote Winthrop.  “The presence of one invalid prohibition, however, does not invalidate all of [the ordinance].”

 

“Here, by striking the second half [of the offending section] – which bans an owner of a place of public accommodation from making a person feel ‘unwelcome,’ ‘objectionable,’ ‘unacceptable,’ and ‘undesirable’ based on sexual orientation – does not render the remainder of the ordinance unenforceable or unworkable. . .   The remainder of [the provision] operates independently and is enforceable as intended.”

 

Turning to the free exercise of religion issue, the court had to deal with the state’s Free Exercise of Religion Act, which prohibits governmental entities in Arizona from substantially burdening a person’s exercise of religion “even if the burden results from a rule of general applicability” unless the rule is both “in furtherance of a compelling government interest and is the least restrictive means of furthering that governmental interest.” The statute’s language is taken verbatim from the federal Religious Freedom Restoration Act.

The court rejected the argument that requiring the business to provide goods and services for same-sex weddings imposed a substantial burden on the religious beliefs of the business owners. “Appellants are not penalized for expressing their belief that their religion only recognizes the marriage of opposite sex couples,” wrote Winthrop.  “Nor are Appellants penalized for refusing to create wedding-related merchandise as long as they equally refuse similar services to opposite-sex couples.  [The ordinance] merely requires that, by operating a place of public accommodation, Appellants provide equal goods and services to customers regardless of sexual orientation.”  They could stop selling wedding-related goods altogether, but what they “cannot do is use their religion as a shield to discriminate against potential customers,” said the court.  Although providing those goods and services to same-sex couples might “decrease the satisfaction” with which they practice their religion, “this does not, a fortiori, make their compliance” a substantial burden to their religion.

 

And, even if it did impose such a burden, the court found that the city of Phoenix “has a compelling interest in preventing discrimination, and has done so here through the least restrictive means. When faced with similar contentions, other jurisdictions have overwhelmingly concluded that the government has a compelling interest in eradicating discrimination.”  The court quoted from the Washington Supreme Court’s decision in Arlene’s Flowers, but could just as well have been quoting Justice Kennedy’s language in Masterpiece Cakeshop, quoted here.

 

Finally, the court rejected an equal protection challenge to the ordinance, finding that it did not treat people with religious beliefs about marriage differently than others, and that the owners of the business could not claim that they are members of a “suspect class” for purposes of analyzing their equal protection claim. “Phoenix has a legitimate governmental purpose in curtailing discriminatory practices,” wrote Winthrop, “and prohibiting businesses from sexual orientation discrimination is rationally related to that purpose.”

 

A spokesperson for ADF promptly announced that they would seek review from the Arizona Supreme Court, which has discretion whether to review the decision. Seeking review, however, is a prerequisite to petitioning the U.S. Supreme Court.  ADF is clearly determined to get this issue back before the Supreme Court.  It represents Arlene’s Flowers, whose petition is now pending, and it also represents a videography company in a case similar to Brush & Nibs, affirmatively litigating to get an injunction to allow the company to expand into wedding videos without having to do them for same-sex weddings.  The district court’s ruling against them in that case is now on appeal in a federal circuit court. One way or another, it seems likely that this issue will get back to the Supreme Court before too long.

 

ACLU Reboots Gavin Grimm Challenge to Gloucester School Board Policy

Posted on: September 2nd, 2017 by Art Leonard No Comments

On August 2, the Richmond-based 4th Circuit Court of Appeals announced that instead of holding oral argument in Gavin Grimm’s lawsuit challenging the Gloucester County School Board’s bathroom access policy, it was sending the case back to the district court for a determination whether Grimm’s recent graduation from high school made the appeal moot.  Did Grimm still have standing to seek the injunctive relief that he sought? Grimm v. Gloucester County School Board, 2017 U.S. App. LEXIS 14158.  The three-judge panel had tentatively scheduled an oral argument for September to consider yet again whether Senior U.S. District Judge Robert G. Doumar erred when he dismissed Grimm’s Title IX sex discrimination claim against the Gloucester County School Board and denied Grimm’s motion for a preliminary injunction. The circuit panel speculated that its jurisdiction to decide the case may have been ended by Grimm’s graduation, but that it was not clear from the record before the court and the supplemental briefs filed by the parties earlier in July whether this is so, and the court concluded that more fact-finding was necessary before the issue of its jurisdiction could be decided.  A week later, however, Grimm’s lawyers from the ACLU agreed with the School Board to end the appeal concerning the preliminary injunction, submitting a stipulation to the 4th Circuit to that effect, resulting in a one-sentence order by that court dismissing the appeal.  Grimm v. Gloucester Bounty School Board, 2017 U.S. App. LEXIS 16697 (4th Cir. Aug. 30, 3017).  But they did not agree to end the case, instead filing an amended complaint on August 11, of which more details follow below.

Grimm’s mother originally filed suit on his behalf against the school board in July 2015, during the summer before his junior year, alleging that the Board’s policy of requiring students to use restrooms based on their biological sex rather than their gender identity violated Grimm’s right to be free of sex discrimination forbidden under Title IX of the Education Amendments Act of 1972 and the Equal Protection Clause of the 14th Amendment.  Grimm sought a preliminary injunction so he could resume using the boys’ restrooms at the high school while the case was pending.  The Board moved to dismiss, arguing that Title IX did not apply to this dispute and that its action did not violate the Constitution.  Judge Doumar ruled on September 17, 2015, in favor of the Board’s motion to dismiss the Title IX claim, while reserving judgment on the 14th Amendment claim, and denied Grimm’s motion for a preliminary injunction to allow him to use the boys’ bathrooms as he appealed the dismissal.  While the case was pending before Judge Doumar, the U.S. Departments of Education and Justice filed a joint statement with the court supporting Grimm’s claim that barring him from using the boys’ bathrooms violated Title IX.

Ruling on Grimm’s appeal of the dismissal on April 19, 2016, the 4th Circuit focused on the document issued by the federal agencies, finding that the district court should have deferred to their interpretation of the Title IX regulations, finding it to be a reasonable interpretation of the regulations.  The court reversed Judge Doumar’s dismissal of the Title IX claim, and sent the case back to Doumar to reconsider Grimm’s request for a preliminary injunction.  Shortly thereafter, the Departments of Education and Justice sent a joint “Dear Colleague” letter to all the nation’s public schools that receive federal funds, more formally stating their position on Title IX coverage of the transgender facilities access issue and other issues relevant to equal educational opportunity for transgender students.  Responding to the Circuit’s remand, Doumar issued a preliminary injunction on June 23, 2016, too late to get Grimm access to the boys’ bathrooms during his junior year but potentially ensuring that he could use appropriate bathrooms at the high school during his senior year.  But that was not to be.  Even though Judge Doumar and the 4th Circuit refused to stay the preliminary injunction while the case was on appeal, the School Board successfully petitioned the Supreme Court for a stay while it prepared to file a petition to have the Supreme Court review the 4th Circuit’s ruling.  Thus, as the 2016-17 school year began, Grimm was still barred from using the boys’ bathrooms at his high school.

The Supreme Court subsequently granted the Board’s petition to review the 4th Circuit’s decision, continuing the stay of the preliminary injunction, and scheduled an oral argument to take place on March 28, 2017.  Meanwhile, Donald Trump was elected president, took office in January, and appointed Jeff Sessions to be Attorney General and Betsy DeVos to be Secretary of Education.  Sessions and DeVos disagreed with the Obama Administration’s interpretation of Title IX, and on February 22 they announced that the Departments of Education and Justice were “withdrawing” the Obama Administration’s “Dear Colleague” letter and issuing a new one that, in effect, took no position on the appropriate interpretation of Title IX, instead stating that the question of bathroom access in public schools should be decided by the states and localities, not the federal government.  The Supreme Court reacted to this development by granting the Solicitor General’s subsequent request to cancel the oral argument, vacated the 4th Circuit’s decision, and sent the case back to the 4th Circuit to address the merits of Grimm’s appeal as a matter of judicial interpretation of the relevant statutory and regulatory provisions, there no longer being an executive branch interpretation to which the court need defer. The 4th Circuit directed the district court to quash the preliminary injunction and tentatively scheduled an argument to be held in September.  After Grimm graduated in June, the parties filed supplemental briefs to update the court on what had happened since it last considered the case.

The School Board argued that the case had become moot because Grimm had graduated. “The School Board argues that, absent any allegation of a ‘particular intention to return to school after graduation,’ this change of status deprives Grimm of a continued interest in the litigation, rendering the case moot,” wrote the court in its brief order issued on August 2.  “The School Board states further that its bathroom policy does not necessarily apply to alumni, and that the issue of whether the policy is applicable to alumni is not yet ripe for adjudication.”  Grimm responded that it was enough that his possible “future attendance at alumni and school-community events” at the high school gave him a continuing concrete interest in obtaining the injunctive relief he was seeking in this lawsuit.  He also pointed out that the School Board’s “noncommittal statement” that the policy did “not necessarily apply” to alumni “falls short of a representation that the Board will voluntarily cease discriminating against” him.

The court does not have jurisdiction of the case unless there is an “actual case or controversy” between the parties. The Supreme Court has established that this means that the plaintiff, Grimm, must have a concrete interest in the outcome, which would mean that the policy he is challenging must actually affect him personally.  “Thus,” wrote the court, “a crucial threshold question arises in this appeal whether ‘one or both of the parties plainly lack a continuing interest’ in the resolution of this case such that it has become moot.”  The court decided that “the facts on which our jurisdiction could be decided are not in the record before us.”  The factual record in this case consisted of the sworn allegations that were presented to the district court in 2015 when it was ruling on the Board’s motion to dismiss the case, when Grimm was but a rising junior at the high school.  Thus, the 4th Circuit panel decided it was necessary to send the case back to the district court for “factual development of the record by the district court and possibly additional jurisdictional discovery.”  They were not sending the case back for a new ruling by the district court on the merits, just for a ruling on the question of mootness after additional fact-finding.  Any determination by Judge Doumar that the case was moot could, of course, be appealed by Grimm.

But litigating over the issue of mootness with respect to the preliminary injunction did not strike the ACLU as the best approach at this point in the litigation, so it secured agreement from the School Board to move the 4th Circuit to dismiss the appeal, and proceeded to file an amended complaint.  The new complaint supplements the original complaint with factual allegations bringing the story up to date, culminating with the following: “As an alumnus with close ties to the community, Gavin will continue to be on school grounds when attending football games, alumni activities, or social events with friends who are still in high school.”  This would support his continuing personal stake in the issue of appropriate restroom access at the school.  The complaint restates 14th Amendment and Title IX as sources of legal authority for the argument that the school board’s policy violates federal law.  The request for relief is reframed to reflect Grimm’s alumni status, seeking a declaration that the policy is illegal, nominal damages (symbolic of the injury done to Grimm by denying him appropriate restroom access), a permanent injunction allowing Grimm to use the same restrooms as “other male alumni,” his reasonable litigation costs and attorneys’ fees, and “such other relief as the Court deems just and proper.”  The school board can be expected to move to dismiss the amended complaint with the argument it made to the court in suggesting that the case was moot, but this time the standing question will be litigated solely with respect to Grimm’s alumni status going forward.

It appears from the docket number stamped on the amended complaint by the court clerk’s office, 4:15-cv-00054-AWA-DEM, that the case is now assigned to District Judge Arenda L. Wright Allen, who was appointed by President Obama in 2011. Judge Doumar, 87, who issued the earlier rulings for the district court, is a senior judge who was appointed by Ronald Reagan in 1981.

While this litigation drama was unfolding in Gloucester County, the Chicago-based 7th Circuit Court of Appeals ruled on May 30 in Whitaker v. Kenosha Unified School District No. 1 Board of Education, 858 F.3d 1034, that Title IX prohibits a public school from refusing to let transgender students use bathrooms appropriate for their gender identity, so the issue has percolated further elsewhere in the country. The Kenosha School District filed a petition for certiorari with the Supreme Court on August 25.  So it is distinctly possible, that the action on this issue will move there and this case may well end up being put “on hold” by the court if the Supreme Court agrees to hear the Kenosha appeal.

European Human Rights Court Rules Against Russia on “Homosexual Propaganda” Laws

Posted on: June 20th, 2017 by Art Leonard No Comments

 

A seven-member chamber of the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg issued a judgment on June 20 in the case of Bayev & Others v. Russia, Applications nos. 67667/09 and 2 others, holding that local and national laws in Russia making it an administrative offense for somebody to “promote homosexuality among minors” or to promote “non-traditional sexual relations” violates the free speech and equality provisions of the European Convention on Human Rights.  The Parliament of the Russian Federation ratified the Convention in 1998, during the period of liberalization in that country, but in 2015 the Parliament approved a draft law endorsed by President Vladimir Putin authorizing Russia to ignore rulings of the European Court of Human Rights when they were inconsistent with the Russian Constitution.  Despite their proclaimed purpose of protecting minors, the laws have been aggressively enforced to prevent public demonstrations in support of LGBT rights.

The Bayev case consolidated applications to the court by three Russian gay rights advocates, Nikolay Bayev, Aleksey Kiselev, and Nikolay Alekseyev, each of whom had been prosecuted under either the local laws or the federal law, all of which made it an administrative offense, punishable by a fine, to “promote homosexuality” or “non-traditional relationships” to minors.  These applicants had demonstrated with banners asserting the normality of homosexuality, in two cases in places where children were likely to see them (schools, libraries) and in one case in front of a government building.  Each of them was fined, and their appeals were rejected by the constitutional courts in Russia.

In defending the laws, the Russian government insisted that they were within its authority, and consistent with the European Convention, to protect the morals of youth and the demographic and health concerns of the nation by prohibiting such “promotion.”  The government pointed to the severe demographic challenge faced by Russia, which has suffered a declining population, as well as the risks of HIV transmission through homosexual activity and the need to channel Russian youth into traditional heterosexual family relationships to produce more children.

The applicants pointed to the protection for freedom of expression and equality under Articles 10 and 14 of the Convention, contending that the government had not provided adequate justification for censoring the applicants’ messages.

The seven-member chamber, whose judgment will be appealed by Russia to a larger “Grand Chamber” of the court, included judges from Sweden, Spain, Switzerland, Slovakia, Cyprus and the Netherlands, as well as a Russian judge, who was the lone dissenter from the judgment.

The court thoroughly rejected the Russian government’s argument in support of the laws.  The government admitted that the laws restricted freedom of expression, but claimed that the restriction fell within the “margin of appreciation” for justified restrictions.  While noting the government’s argument that the “margin of appreciation” is wide “where the subject matter may be linked to sensitive moral or ethical issues” as to which there is no European consensus, in this case, the court said, “there is a clear European consensus about the recognition of individuals’ right to openly identify themselves as gay, lesbian or any other sexual minority, and to promote their own rights and freedoms,” citing to its earlier judgment in a case brought by Mr. Alexeyev in opposition to the earliest local enactment of a similar law.

Seeking to justify its position, the government alleged the “incompatibility between maintaining family values as the foundation of society and acknowledging the social acceptance of homosexuality,” but the court was not convinced.  “The Court sees no reason to consider these elements as incompatible, especially in view of the growing general tendency to include relationships between same-sex couples within the concept of ‘family life’ and the acknowledgement of the need for their legal recognition and protection.”  After noting the strong trend in Europe towards recognition for same-sex relationships, and suggesting that the court’s jurisprudence had to move with the times, the court also noted the strong desire of same-sex couples to form families and raise children. Furthermore, said the court, “The Government failed to demonstrate how freedom of expression on LGBT issues would devalue or otherwise adversely affect actual and existing ‘traditional families’ or would compromise their future.”

“The Court has consistently declined to endorse policies and decisions which embodied a predisposed bias on the part of a heterosexual majority against a homosexual minority,” said the court. “It held that these negative attitudes, references to traditions or general assumptions in a particular country cannot of themselves be considered by the Court to amount to sufficient justification for the differential treatment, any more than similar negative attitudes towards those of a different race, origin or color.”  The court found that the challenged Russian laws are “an example of such predisposed bias,” and rejected the idea that because the majority of Russians strongly oppose homosexuality, that would justify the government in abridging the freedom of expression of gay people seeking to protect their rights.  Thus, the Court rejected the government’s argument that “regulating public debate on LGBT issues may be justified on the grounds of the protection of morals.”

The court also rejected the government’s argument that the laws could be justified as public health measures or as a means to address the country’s demographic problems. In fact, the court pointed out, ignorance about homosexuality would be counterproductive as a public health measure, and there was no evidence that suppressing all discussion of homosexuality that could come to the attention of minors would contribute to growth of the Russian population.  “Population growth depends on a multitude of conditions, economic prosperity, social-security rights and accessibility of childcare being the most obvious factors among those susceptible to State influence,” wrote the court.  “Suppression of information about same-sex relationships is not a method by which a negative demographic trend may be reversed. Moreover, a hypothetical general benefit would in any event have to be weighed against the concrete rights of LGBT individuals who are adversely affected by the impugned restrictions. It is sufficient to observe that social approval of heterosexual couples is not conditional on their intention or ability to have children.”

The court also found that the laws could not be justified as a measure to “protect the rights of others,” such as minors themselves or their parents. The laws did not prevent parents from instructing their children or promoting traditional heterosexual relationships to their children.  Furthermore, the laws as interpreted by the Russian courts and applied to the applicants in these cases were clearly both vague and overly broad, extending to activities that were hardly likely to undermine parental authority or to harm children.

The court found that the biased views underlying the laws also supported the applicants’ arguments that the laws violate Article 14 of the Covenant, which guarantees equality.

As a remedy, the court ordered that the Russian government refund to the applicants the fines they had been ordered to pay, and also awarded them monetary damages to compensate for expenses incurred in connection with this litigation. Also, wrote the court, “it considers that the applicants suffered stress and anxiety as a result of the application of the discriminatory legal provisions against them. It also notes that the impugned legal provisions have not been repealed and remain in force, and thus the effects of the harm already sustained by the applicants have not been mitigated,” so it awarded additional damages as compensation. The amounts awarded were relatively trivial.

The Russian judge on the panel, Dmitry Dedov, submitted a dissenting opinion that channeled the arguments of the Russian government, particularly as they were articulated by the constitutional court in rejecting the appeals in these cases.

The government contended that the challenged measures are non-discriminatory, do not impose criminal sanctions for homosexual conduct and do not single out homosexuals for suppression of their expression, but rather focus on socially harmful messages that everybody, whether gay or straight, are prohibited from sending to minors. Dedov contended that the court erred by focusing on a “conflict of rights” rather than on the government’s “legitimate aim” in promoting the morals and health of minors and Russian society.  He contended that what the local governments and the Federal government had done was well within their appropriate role to promote social welfare, and particularly the well-being of vulnerable minors, and that the court was mistaken in treating this as a case about discrimination.

“Needless to say,” he wrote, “sexual identification, as well as sexual orientation, is a very intimate process, albeit influenced by social life and social relations. The international instruments, including the CRC, recognize that children should primarily consult their parents or close members of the family, rather than obtaining information about sex from the applicants’ posters in the street.”  He argued that it was for the government to determine how to educate minors about their social roles, contending that “it is commonly recognized that sex education is a very sensitive area where the dissemination of information should be carried out very carefully.”

The Russian news agency, Tass, quickly reported that the Russian Justice Ministry would appeal the decision and contest the remedy, which totaled about 49,000 euros. The statement from the Ministry reiterated Judge Dedov’s main point, arguing that “the provisions of a number of regional laws banning LGBT propaganda among minors do not contradict international practices and are aimed exclusively at protection of children’s morality and health.”

The full text of the opinion in English is available on the court’s website, as well as a press release summarizing the decision.