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Trump Administration Defies Court Disclosure Order on Eve of Previously Announced Trans Military Policy Implementation Date

Posted on: March 23rd, 2018 by Art Leonard No Comments

On August 25, 2017, President Donald J. Trump issued a Memorandum to the Secretaries of Defense and Homeland Security, directing that effective March 23, 2018, transgender people would not be allowed to serve in the military. The Memorandum charged Defense Secretary James Mattis with the task of submitting an implementation plan to the White House by February 21.  Mattis submitted something in writing on February 23, but its contents have not been made public.

Meanwhile, the Department of Justice (DOJ) filed a statement late on March 22 with Judge Marsha J. Pechman of the U.S. District Court in Seattle, Washington, essentially refusing to comply with her Order issued on March 20 to reveal the identity of the “generals” and other “military experts” whom Trump purportedly consulted before his Twitter announcement last July 26 that transgender people would not be allowed to serve in any capacity in the armed forces. Karnoski v. Trump, Case 2:17-cv-01297-MJP (Defendants’ Response to the Court’s March 20, 2018, Order, filed March 22, 2018), responding to Karnoski v. Trump, 2018 US. Dist. LEXIS 45696 (W.D. Wash. March 20, 2018).

Judge Pechman is presiding over a lawsuit filed last fall by Lambda Legal and Outserve-SLDN challenging the policy. Pechman denied DOJ’s motion to dismiss that case and granted a motion by the plaintiffs for a preliminary injunction against the policy going into effect.  In order to grant the injunction, the judge had to conclude that it was likely the policy would be found to be unconstitutional and that an injunction pending the outcome of the case was necessary to protect the legitimate interests of people who would be adversely affected by the policy.  Karnoski v. Trump, 2017 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 167232 (W.D. Wash. Oct. 10, 2017), motion to stay preliminary injunction denied, 2017 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 167232, 2017 WL 6311305 (W.D. Wash. Dec. 11, 2017); 2017 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 213420 (W.D. Wash. Dec. 29, 2017).

Then discovery in the case began, and DOJ refused in February to comply with the plaintiffs’ request for the identity of the “generals” and “experts” Trump claimed in his tweet to have consulted. DOJ argued that their defense in the case would not rely on any testimony or documentation from such individuals, since they would not be defending the August 25 policy announcement, but rather some new policy yet to be announced after Mattis submitted his recommendations.

Judge Pechman, ruling on a requested order to compel discovery filed by the plaintiffs, observed in an opinion issued on March 14 that “this case arises not out of any new or future policy that is in the process of being developed, but rather out of the current policy prohibiting military serve by openly transgender persons, announced on Twitter by President Trump on July 26, 2017, and formalized in an August 25, 2017 Presidential Memorandum.”  Karnoski v. Trump, 2018 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 43011 (W.D. Wash., March 14, 2018).

She continued, “Defendants cannot reasonably claim that there are no individuals likely to have discoverable information and no documents relevant to their claims and defenses regarding the current policy. President Trump’s own announcement states “after consultation with my Generals and military experts, please be advised that the United States Government will not accept or allow . . . Transgender individuals to serve in any capacity in the U.S. Military.”

Judge Pechman asked, “Which Generals and military experts were consulted? Which Service Chiefs and Secretaries provided counsel?  What information did they review or rely upon in formulating the current policy?  Were the court to credit Defendants’ Initial Disclosures and Amended Disclosures, the answer to these questions apparently would be ‘none.’”  The judge gave DOJ five days to comply.

DOJ responded by seeking “clarification” and raising the prospect that the president could invoke “executive privilege” to refuse to comply with the discovery request, in order to protect the confidentiality of presidential deliberations.

Responding to this argument early on March 20, Pechman issued a new opinion, 2018 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 45696. She wrote, “The Court cannot rule on a ‘potential’ privilege, particularly where the allegedly privileged information is unidentified,” and pointed out that DOJ had not invoked executive privilege in its earlier incomplete responses to the plaintiffs’ discovery requests, or in any of their prior motions to the court.  She pointed out that under the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure, “in order to assert privilege, a party must ‘expressly make the claim’ and ‘describe the nature of the documents, communications, or tangible things not produced or disclosed – and do so in a manner that, without revealing information itself privileged or protected, will enable other parties to assess the claim.”

Furthermore, she noted, “While Defendants claim they do not intend to rely on information concerning President Trump’s deliberative process, their claim is belied by their ongoing defense of the current policy as one involving ‘the complex, subtle, and professional decisions as to the composition . . . of a military force . . .’ to which ‘considerable deference’ is owed.” Of course, claiming that the court should “defer” to “professional decisions” requires showing that this policy was adopted as a result of “professional decisions” and not based solely on the President’s political concerns.

The refusal to disclose what advice the president relied upon in announcing this policy leads to the inevitable conclusion either that such consultations did not take place, as Judge Pechman intimated on March 14, or if they did the president was likely acting against the advice of his generals and military experts.  Anybody reasonably informed on trends in the federal courts would have concluded by last summer that a revived ban on transgender service would be seriously vulnerable to constitutional challenge, and military commanders with a full year of experience in having openly transgender personnel would know that the policy implemented by the Obama Administration effective the beginning of July 2016 had not led to any problems with good order, morale, or substantial health care costs.

Judge Pechman gave DOJ until 5 p.m. Pacific Daylight Time on March 22 to comply with her discovery order. DOJ submitted its statement refusing to do so shortly before that deadline, once again arguing that because they did not intend to defend last summer’s policy pronouncements, they were standing on their position that they were not required to make any of the disclosures in dispute since they would not be calling any witnesses, documents or studies for the purpose of defending those policies.

As this is being written on March 23, there has been no indication by the White House that an implementation policy or a revised version of last summer’s policy is being announced. This is not surprising, since three other federal district judges as well as Judge Pechman issued preliminary injunctions last year against implementation of the policy that was to go into effect on March 23, and two federal courts of appeals (the D.C. Circuit and the 4th Circuit) rejected petitions by the Justice Department to stay two of the preliminary injunctions.

In fact, in light of the injunctions the Defense Department notified its recruitment staff in December about the criteria for enlistment of transgender applicants that would go into effect on January 1, 2018, and that process did go into effect, with a subsequent announcement by the Defense Department that at least one transgender applicant, whose name was not disclosed, had completed the enlistment process, marking the first time that an openly transgender individual has been allowed to enlist.

In a slippery move, DOJ may be trying to render the existing preliminary injunctions and lawsuits irrelevant by arguing that the policy announced in the August 25 Memorandum has never gone into effect and that, pursuant to Mattis’s undisclosed recommendations, it never will.  Meanwhile, thousands of transgender military personnel find their employment status in a state of uncertainty, as do transgender reserve members or military service academy students working towards graduating and joining the active forces.

Perhaps some hint of what the new policy will be can be found in the Defense Department’s enlistment policies announced in December, which would preclude enlisting transgender individuals unless they are medically certified to have been “stable” with respect to their gender identity for at least 18 months, and thus unlikely to seek to transition while in military service, either because they have already completely transitioned from the gender identified at birth to their currently identified gender or presumably have foresworn any intent to transition while in the military.

This disclosure controversy relates back to the likely motivation behind Trump’s initial July tweet, which came shortly after the Houses of Representatives had rejected an amendment to a pending Defense spending bill that would have blocked any spending for “sex reassignment surgery” for military personnel. There were reports at the time that congressional sponsors of that amendment warned the President that he did not have sufficient Republican votes in the House to pass the bill in the absence of such a provision.  Trump’s apparent solution to his immediate political problem was to bar all transgender military service, which would remove the possibility of any serving member seeking to access the military health care budget to pay for their transition, since such a request would lead to their immediate discharge under the policy he announced.  In other words, DOJ is attempting to bury the fact that Trump probably lied in his Tweet when he intimated that this change of policy was the result of recommendations from generals and military experts, but their stonewalling leads to Judge Pechman’s obvious conclusion stated on March 14.

Two Federal Judges Deal Setbacks to Trump’s Transgender Military Ban

Posted on: December 11th, 2017 by Art Leonard No Comments

Federal district judges on opposite coasts dealt setbacks to President Donald J. Trump’s anti-transgender military policy on December 11.  U.S. District Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly of the District Court in Washington, D.C., rejected a motion by the Justice Department in Doe v. Trump to stay her preliminary injunction that requires the Defense Department to allow transgender people to apply to join the service beginning January 1, 2018.  And U.S. District Judge Marsha J. Pechman refused to dismiss the complaint in Karnoski v. Trump, a lawsuit challenging the anti-transgender service ban, while granting the plaintiffs’ motion for a preliminary injunction against implementation of the policy.  Also on December 11, U.S. District Judge Jesus G. Bernal in Los Angeles heard arguments in support of a motion for preliminary injunction in Stockman v. Trump, a fourth lawsuit challenging the ban.

Judge Kollar-Kotelly’s decision was predictable, given her October 30 ruling granting the preliminary injunction and a more recent ruling “clarifying,” at the request of the Justice Department, that she really intended to require the Defense Department to allow transgender individuals to begin enlisting on January 1.  The Justice Department incredibly claimed that this January 1 deadline created an emergency situation, but their argument was significantly undercut by reports last week that the Pentagon had, in response to the judge’s earlier Order, put into motion the steps necessary to comply.

In support of its motion for a stay, DOJ presented a “declaration” from Acting Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Military Personnel Policy Lernes J. Hebert, who claimed that implementing the court’s order on January 1 would “impose extraordinary burdens on the Department and the military services” and that “notwithstanding the implementation efforts made to date, the Department still would not be adequately and properly prepared to begin processing transgender applicants for military service by January 1, 2018.”

The judge found this unconvincing, pointing out that DoD has had almost a year and a half to prepare for this eventuality, dating back to former Secretary of Defense Ashton Carter’s June 2016 Directive pointing to a July 1, 2016, implementation date for allowing transgender people to enlist, which was extended for six months by Secretary James Mattis at the end of June 2017.  “Moreover,” she wrote, “the Court issued the preliminary injunction in this case approximately six weeks ago, and since then Defendants have been on notice that they would be required to implement the previously established policy of beginning to accept transgender individuals on January 1, 2018.  In other words, with only a brief hiatus, Defendants have had the opportunity to prepare for the accession of transgender individuals into the military for nearly one and a half years.”

In opposition to the motion, the plaintiffs had submitted a declaration by Dr. George Richard Brown, who has trained “approximately 250 medical personnel working in Military Entrance Processing Stations (MEPS) throughout the military” in anticipation of implementing the accessions policy, and a declaration by former Secretary of the Navy Ray Mabus, Jr., who stated that “the Services had already completed almost all of the necessary preparation for lifting the accession ban” as long as a year ago.

As to the so-called emergency nature of this motion, Judge Kollar-Kotelly wrote, “As a final point, the Court notes that Defendants’ portrayal of their situation as an emergency is belied by their litigation tactics. The Court issued its preliminary injunction requiring Defendants to comply with the January 1, 2018 deadline on October 30, 2017.  Defendants did not file an appeal of that decision until November 21, 2017, and did not file the current motion for a stay of that deadline until December 6, 2017, requesting a decision by noon today, December 11, 2017.  There is also no indication that Defendants have sought any sort of expedited review of their appeal, the first deadlines in which are not until January, 2018.  If complying with the military’s previously established January 1, 2018 deadline to begin accession was as unmanageable as Defendants now suggest, one would have expected Defendants to act with more alacrity.”

However, the judge’s denial of the stay may prove more symbolic than effective in terms of allowing transgender people to actually enlist, since she noted that the policy that will go into effect on January 1 presents significant barriers to enlistment on medical grounds.  The Pentagon is planning to require that transgender applicants show, generally speaking, that for at least 18 months prior to their applications they have been “stable” with regard to their gender identity.  Nobody can enlist, for example, if they have undergone gender confirmation surgery within the past 18 months, since the medical standard will require that they have been “stable” for at least 18 months after the last surgical treatment.  Similarly, anybody first diagnosed as having gender dysphoria within the previous 18 months cannot enlist, since they will have to have certified by a licensed medical provider that they have been “stable without clinically significant distress or impairment” for at least 18 months since their diagnosis.  And those under treatment, for example taking hormone therapy, will have to show they have been stable for at least 18 months since commencing therapy.  In addition, of course, applicants will have to meet all medical requirements applicable to everybody regardless of gender identity, and it is well-known that a substantial percentage of potential enlistees are disqualified on physical/medical grounds.

As to the government’s “extraordinary burden” argument, Judge Kollar-Kotelly noted, “There is no evidence in the record that would suggest that the number of transgender individuals who might seek to accede on January 1, 2018, would be overwhelmingly large.  To the contrary, although the Court understands that there may be some dispute as to the amount of transgender individuals in the general population and in the military, the record thus far suggests that the number is fairly small.”

Plaintiffs in Doe v. Trump are represented by National Center for Lesbian Rights and GLAD.

The plaintiffs in Karnoski v. Trump, pending in the district court in Seattle, are represented by Lambda Legal and Outserve/SLDN.  They alleged four theories for challenging the policy: equal protection, substantive due process (deprivation of liberty), procedural due process, and freedom of speech.  Judge Pechman found that three out of these four theories were sufficiently supported by the complaint to deny the Justice Department’s motion to dismiss the case, although she granted the motion as to the procedural due process claim.  She efficiently disposed of various procedural objections to the lawsuit, finding that all of the plaintiffs have standing to proceed, including the organizational plaintiffs and the State of Washington, whose motion to intervene as a plaintiff had previously been granted, and that the dispute is ripe for judicial resolution because of the imminent implementation of Trump’s policy directives.

As had two district judges before her, Judge Pechman cut and pasted screen captures of the president’s July 26 tweet announcing the policy into her opinion, and used particularly cutting language to reject DOJ’s argument that the president’s policy decision was entitled to the kind of judicial deference usually accorded to military policy decisions. “Defendants rely on Rostker v. Goldberg (1981). In Rostker, the Supreme Court considered whether the Military Selective Service Act (MSSA), which compelled draft registration for men only, was unconstitutional.  Finding that the MSSA was enacted after extensive review of legislative testimony, floor debates, and committee reports, the Supreme Court held that Congress was entitled to deference when, in ‘exercising the congressional authority to raise and support armies and make rules for their governance,’ it does not act ‘unthinkingly’ or ‘reflexively and not for any considered reason.’  In contrast, the prohibition on military service by transgender individuals was announced by President Trump on Twitter, abruptly and without any evidence of considered reason or deliberation.  The policy is therefore not entitled to Rostker deference.  Because Defendants have failed to demonstrate that the policy prohibiting transgender individuals from serving openly is substantially related to important government interests, it does not survive intermediate scrutiny.”  In a footnote, the judge added, “For the same reasons, the policy is also unlikely to survive rational basis review.”

The court concluded that all the tests for preliminary injunctive relief established by the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals (Washington State is within the 9th Circuit) had easily been satisfied.  Her Order “enjoins Defendants and their officers, agents, servants, employees, and attorneys, and any other person or entity subject to their control or acting directly or indirectly in concert or participation with Defendants from taking any action relative to transgender individuals that is inconsistent with the status quo that existed prior to President Trump’s July 26, 2017 announcement.  This Preliminary Injunction shall take effect immediately and shall remain in effect pending resolution of this action on the merits or further order of this Court.”

Thus, Judge Pechman issued the third preliminary injunction against Trump’s anti-transgender policy, after those issued by Judge Kollar-Kotelly on October 30 and U.S. District Judge Marvin J. Garbis in Stone v. Trump on November 21 in the District Court in Maryland. All three preliminary injunctions block the discharge of transgender service members while the case is pending and require the Pentagon to allow transgender people to begin enlisting on January 1.  The injunctions by Judge Garbis and Judge Pechman also block the administration from refusing to fund transition-related health care (including surgery).  In the face of this united front from the three judges, it seems likely that Judge Bernal will eventually issue a similar order, so attention will turn to the Courts of Appeals to which DOJ has appealed the first ruling and presumably will soon appeal the others.

Justice Department Tells 2nd Circuit That Gays Are Not Protected from Discrimination Under Federal Civil Rights Law

Posted on: July 27th, 2017 by Art Leonard No Comments

The U.S. Department of Justice filed a brief on July 26 with the New York-based U.S. Court of Appeals for the 2nd Circuit, weighing in on the question whether Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 bans discrimination because of sexual orientation.  Not surprisingly, the Trump Administration’s answer is “No.”

 

Title VII lists forbidden grounds for employment discrimination: race or color, religion, sex and national origin. After it went into effect in July 1965, both the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC), the agency charged with enforcement of the statute, and the federal courts quickly took the position that people who encountered discrimination because they were gay or transgender could not pursue a claim under this law.  Both the administrative agency and the federal courts held fast to that position until relatively recently.

 

That consensus began to break down early in this century, first in response to discrimination claims by transgender people, as courts and then the EEOC (in 2012) accepted the argument that discriminating against somebody because they were transitioning or had transitioned was actually discrimination because of sex. The rationale they adopted derived from a 1989 decision by the Supreme Court, which recognized that discrimination against people for failing to comply with the employer’s stereotyped view about how people of a particular sex should behave, dress, or otherwise act, was actually discrimination because of their sex.  The 1989 case involved a woman who was denied a partnership in an accounting firm because some of the partners thought she was not sufficiently feminine to meet their image of a “lady partner,” and her immediate boss told her she should get her hair styled and start wearing makeup and jewelry if she wanted to be a partner.

 

By 2015, the EEOC had taken the analysis one step further to cover sexual orientation claims. It recognized that having a same-sex attraction violates gender stereotypes, similarly to the transgender cases, but also drew analogies to cases where courts found that discriminating against an employee for being in an interracial relationship was a form of race discrimination, called associational discrimination.  Further, the EEOC decided that it was really not plausible to distinguish between sexual orientation discrimination and sex discrimination, since both were concerned with treating people differently because of their sex.

 

Until this year, no federal appellate court had accepted these theories, but on April 4, the full bench of the Chicago-based U.S. Court of Appeals for the 7th Circuit became the first federal appeals court to rule that Title VII bans sexual orientation discrimination.  Reversing its prior precedents, the court accepted the EEOC’s analysis in a lawsuit by Kimberly Hively, a lesbian who had been denied a tenure-track position by an Indiana community college.  The college decided not to appeal, taking the position that it had not discriminated at all, so the case was sent back for trial to the district court.

 

Meanwhile, however, the same issue was being litigated in other parts of the country. In the Atlanta-based 11th Circuit, a sexual orientation discrimination claim by Jameka Evans against a Georgia hospital that had been dismissed by the district court was revived by the court of appeals, but on a narrower theory.  In common with several other circuits, the 11th Circuit will accept Title VII claims from gay plaintiffs who allege that they suffered discrimination because of their failure to conform to gender stereotypes.  In this case, while a three-judge panel ruled 2-1 to affirm the trial court’s rejection of the plaintiff’s sexual orientation discrimination claim, the panel sent the case back to the trial court to allow the plaintiff to pursue a sex stereotyping claim.  One member partially dissented, Judge William Pryor (who had been on Trump’s potential Supreme Court list), finding no basis for any Title VII claim by the plaintiff.  Another member of the court agreed to send the case back, but argued that Title VII should be interpreted to cover sexual orientation claims.  A third member found that the panel was bound by circuit precedent to reject the sexual orientation claim, but agreed that the plaintiff should have a chance to pursue a sex stereotype claim.  The 11th Circuit denied a petition to reconsider the Evans case “en banc” (by the full bench) a few weeks ago, and Lambda Legal announced that it will petition the Supreme Court to review the panel decision.  Lambda has until the first week of October to file its petition.

 

Meanwhile, however, within the 2nd Circuit, at least two federal district court judges have recently refused to dismiss sexual orientation claims under Title VII, finding that the circuit’s acceptance of the “associational theory” in a race discrimination case means that the court should accept sexual orientation discrimination claims.  Several other district judges have dismissed such claims, concluding that until the court of appeals explicitly overrules its earlier precedents, the trial judges are bound to follow them.  A few months ago, confronted by petitions for en banc review in three different cases, the Circuit announced that it would reconsider the panel decision in Estate of Donald Zarda v. Altitude Express.

 

In Zarda, the district court had dismissed a Title VII claim but allowed the case to go to trial under New York State’s Human Rights Law, which expressly outlaws sexual orientation discrimination. The jury ruled in favor of the employer, although it is questionable whether the jury was properly instructed about how to weigh the evidence.  The plaintiffs appealed the dismissal of the Title VII claim. A three-judge panel affirmed the district court’s dismissal, while noting that recent developments in the law could justify reconsideration by the full 2nd Circuit bench.  In a case decided by a different three-judge panel at around the same time, Christiansen v. Omnicom, the panel also upheld dismissal of a sexual orientation claim, but sent the case back to the district court for reconsideration as a sex stereotyping claim, and two of the judges joined a concurring opinion suggesting that it was time for the 2nd Circuit to reconsider the sexual orientation issue en banc in an “appropriate case.”  However, after granting en banc review in Zarda, the circuit court denied a petition for en banc review in Christiansen!

 

Briefs were due from the plaintiff’s side in the Zarda appeal during the last week in June. The EEOC, consistent with its interpretation of the statute, filed an amicus (friend of the court) brief in support of the Zarda. (Zarda, a sky-diving instructor, died in a diving accident after starting his discrimination case, so the lawsuit is now being pursued by his executors, seeking money damages for the estate.)    Briefs were due by July 26 from the employer and any amicus parties supporting its position.  After some suspense about what the Trump Administration might do, the Justice Department filed its brief right at the deadline.

 

It is somewhat unusual for the government to file an amicus brief in opposition to a position taken by a federal agency, and it is also unusual for the government to file a brief in a case between private parties – a former employee versus a business – but the federal government has a significant interest in this case, and the politics of EEOC v. DOJ are unusual because of the timing. Until this month, the majority of the EEOC Commissioners have been appointees of President Obama.  They decided the key sexual orientation case two years ago by a vote of 3-2, with the Republican commissioners dissenting.  Upon confirmation of Trump’s appointees to fill some vacancies, control of the EEOC will switch over to Republican hands.  But for now, the EEOC continues to pursue sexual orientation discrimination cases under Title VII, and has even filed some new lawsuits this year despite the change of administrations in January.  On the other hand, the Justice Department reflects the views of the new administration, which are consistent with those expressed by 7th Circuit Judge Diane Sykes (also on Trump’s potential Supreme Court list), who wrote a dissenting opinion in the Hively case.

 

Why does the Trump Administration have a strong interest in a case between private parties? Because Title VII has provisions banning sex discrimination in the federal workforce, and because the president’s political base and the Republicans in Congress stand in opposition to outlawing sexual orientation discrimination.  This is clear from the failure of Republican legislators to co-sponsor the Equality Act, a bill that would amend Title VII to add sexual orientation and gender identity or expression to the statutory list of forbidden grounds of employment discrimination.  A few Republicans were co-sponsors of the Employment Non-Discrimination Act, a narrower bill that was pending in Congress from the mid-1990s through Obama’s first term until it was supplanted by the Equality Act, but not enough to call that bipartisan legislation.  The Employment Non-Discrimination Act came up for floor votes once in each house of Congress but in different sessions of Congress.  On both of those occasions it received few votes from Republican legislators, and their party’s platform never endorsed it.

 

The Justice Department’s brief, noting the EEOC’s position in the case, states that “the EEOC is not speaking for the United States and its position about the scope of Title VII is entitled to no deference beyond its power to persuade.” And, almost needless to say, the Justice Department under the outspokenly anti-gay Jeff Sessions is not persuaded by any of the EEOC’s arguments.  The brief argues that Congress did not intend to ban sexual orientation discrimination in 1964 when it enacted Title VII and that should be the end of the matter.  The failure of Congress to approve any amendment to add sexual orientation to the law is cited as evidence of continuing legislative intent, and the brief argues that only Congress can change the law.  It argues at length that the theories embraced by the EEOC and the 7th Circuit are mistaken interpretations of the Supreme Court’s rulings on sex stereotyping and associational discrimination, and that there is a distinct difference between sex discrimination and sexual orientation discrimination, despite statements by many federal judges that they have difficulty drawing the line between the two.

 

The 2nd Circuit will not be oblivious to the political nature of the government’s opposition.  The concurring opinion in the Christiansen case, written by 2nd Circuit Chief Judge Robert Katzmann, virtually endorsed the EEOC’s interpretation of the statute while calling for the circuit to reconsider its earlier precedents.  And a majority of the judges who will sit on the en banc panel were appointed by Bill Clinton or Barack Obama and have generally taken a more liberal approach to interpreting Title VII.  The circuit’s earlier precedents that are being reconsidered were issued by three-judge panels at a time when the arguments for allowing sexual orientation discrimination claims were not nearly as well developed as they have been in recent years, and the circuit has accepted the associational discrimination theory in a race discrimination case after those earlier cases were decided.  It is likely to see that theory’s applicability here, as the district judges have commented.  However, if the Supreme Court decides to grant Lambda Legal’s petition to review the 11th Circuit case, it is possible that the 2nd Circuit will hold up on deciding the Zarda appeal until the Supreme Court has spoken.  Interesting timing issues will arise this fall.  The 2nd Circuit argument is scheduled for late in September, before the Supreme Court will begin its fall term and start announcing whether it will grant petitions for review filed over the summer.

 

The brief filed by Altitude Express in opposition to the appeal has raised significant jurisdictional arguments that would give the 2nd Circuit a way out of deciding this appeal on the merits, if the judges are so inclined.  That brief argues that when he filed his initial discrimination charge with the EEOC, Donald Zarda expressly disclaimed making a sexual orientation discrimination claim under Title VII, relying instead on the allegation that he suffered discrimination for failing to comply with sex stereotypes.  That was the theory he initially presented in his federal court complaint under Title VII as well, and it was dismissed by the trial judge, who opined that Zarda’s factual allegations were not sufficient for a sex stereotyping claim.  Zarda only pressed a sexual orientation claim under the New York State Human Rights Law.  Thus, Altitude Express argues, he cannot now argue for a sexual orientation discrimination claim under Title VII, because the statute requires that any claim first be presented to the administrative agency, and further that any ruling by the court of appeals on that question would be, in effect, an advisory opinion, as the jury has already ruled against his sexual orientation discrimination claim.  There’s no telling how the 2nd Circuit will respond to these arguments, but one suspects that if they had serious doubts about jurisdiction, they would not have granted the en banc petition.

 

In the meantime, however, it is clear that if the Supreme Court grants review in the 11th Circuit Evans case, the federal government, represented by the Solicitor General, will come into the case against the plaintiff, and by then the EEOC will be in Republican control and will probably not be filing a separate brief.  Once again, the Trump Administration is actively disavowing the LGBT-supportive stance that the candidate claimed during the election last year.  The brief was filed just as Trump was tweeting his decision to bar transgender people from military service, which seemed no coincidence.

Justice Department Finds ATF Discriminated Unlawfully in Transgender Discrimination Case

Posted on: July 16th, 2013 by Art Leonard No Comments

The Justice Department’s Complaint Adjudication Office (CAO) issued a decision on July 8 holding that the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives (ATF) violated Title VII of the Civil Rights Act in 2011 when it denied a position as a contract Ballistics Forensic Technician to an applicant who was in the process of transitioning from male to female.  In its first such ruling, the CAO applied an earlier decision in the case by the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC), which ruled that discrimination because of an individual’s gender identity is sex discrimination that violates Title VII.  The case is Macy v. ATF, Agency Complaint No. ATF-2011-00751.

Most of the CAO’s opinion, which is signed by Complaint Adjudication Officer Mark L. Gross and Attorney Complaint Adjudication Officer Carl D. Taylor, Jr., is devoted to a detailed exposition and analysis of the evidence obtained during the investigation of this charge, after the EEOC had overruled a prior determination by the Justice Department that Mia Macy’s complaint was not covered by Title VII.  The opinion reads a bit like a detective procedural, since there are conflicting and detailed accounts of what had happened leading to a decision by the ATF Walnut Creek Laboratory Chief Donna Read, apparently on April 5, 2011, to terminate the processing of Macy’s application for the position.

Macy had worked as a detective in the Phoenix (Arizona) Police Department and acquired familiarity with certain technology that was also in use at the ATF lab.  While employed with the PPD, Macy was known as Charles DeMasi.  Macy informed her boss in Phoenix that she was planning to move to the San Francisco Bay Area, and her boss said that he knew of an opening for which she would be qualified at the ATF lab in Walnut Creek near San Francisco.  Upon her expression of interest, he called the Section Chief at the lab and recommended DeMasi, who then followed up with phone conversations with the Section Chief.  Macy’s recollection and notes of the calls reflect that she was told the position would be hers after the background check performed by the contractor, Aspen of D.C., which was charged with screening and hiring applicants.  Macy submitted her information to Aspen, and later in the course of the background process revealed to Aspen her intended transition, including name change, which necessitated presenting additional documentation for the background investigation.

The Walnut Creek lab had been intending to hire two people for this work, and both Macy and another candidate were being put through the background investigation by Aspen.  When the word got back to Walnut Creek about Macy’s gender transition, suddenly there was a decision that they could hire only one person, and would go with the other applicant who was “further along” in the background process.  Macy, who had been previously informed that things were moving forward on her application, and that her gender transition would not be an issue, suddenly received an email communication that due to budgetary concerns the position for which she had applied would not be filled, and that she would be contacted if another position opened up in the future.  Something seemed fishy to Macy, who called for further information and was subsequently told that she could be offered a human resources position with another unit of ATF in Seattle for which she was not qualified and had no interest.  She subsequently filed her discrimination complaint with the Justice Department.

The investigators questioned ATF staff and Aspen staff to try to determine how the decision was made to discontinue processing Macy’s application and to inform her that the position was not available for her.  The staffers all insisted that Macy’s gender identity and transition from male to female had nothing to do with the decision, but the investigators concluded otherwise based on inconsistencies in the stories they were told, the suspicious timing of the decision, and Macy’s superior credentials compared to the other candidate who was hired.  The other candidate did not have the past experience and training with the relevant technology that Macy had, and the background investigation of the other candidate raised various suitability questions that were not present in Macy’s background.  Also, the other candidate’s progress through the background investigation was not really much further along than Macy’s. There were also implausible assertions about training issues, and – most suspiciously – certain internal communications immediately after Read learned of Macy’s gender transition that reflected an abrupt change in direction of the hiring process without any credible non-discriminatory explanation. 

“The finding of Title VII discrimination based on ATF’s apparent consideration of complainant’s transgender status is not a simple one to make,” says the opinion.  “Notably, at the time of the incident at issue here, essentially between March 30 and April 5, 2011, ATF management officials were not aware that taking employment actions based on the fact that an individual was male or female after a transgender transition was legally impermissible.  At that time, the Department of Justice had not yet changed its internal regulations to prohibit employment actions based on transgender status, and the EEOC had not yet held that such action violated Title VII’s ban on discrimination on the basis of sex.  It may have been that ATF officials were taken aback by the sudden and clearly unexpected announcement that the applicant they knew as Charles DeMasi was now Mia Macy.  That does not, however, in any way condone or excuse the actions taken here, which are now a violation of Title VII.”

Focusing on the reason why Macy was denied the position, the Office found that the record supported her claim of discrimination.  “The record established that the ATF intended and began taking steps to hire complainant for the position – until she disclosed that she was transitioning from a man to a woman.  The ATF stopped complainant’s hiring process when it learned that complainant, formerly Charles DeMasi, would become Mia Macy.  In light of the EEOC’s decision in this case to hold that actions based on transgender status are actions based on sex and therefore covered by Title VII, the ATF’s actions were discrimination based on sex and therefore prohibited by Title VII.”  The Opinion observed the close analogy of this case to Schroer v. Billington, 577 F.Supp.2d 293 (D.D.C. 2008), in which a highly qualified applicant for a technical research position at the Library of Congress, who had been offered the position, was suddenly not an acceptable candidate after having revealed her plan to transition.  In that case, the District Court ruled that the Library violated Title VII’s ban on sex discrimination by rescinding its job offer.  Schroer was an important judicial precedent for the EEOC’s subsequent ruling in Macy’s case that her complaint could be dealt with under Title VII as a sex discrimination claim.

As a remedy for the discrimination, the Decision orders ATF to offer Macy the position she was seeking, giving her fifteen days to respond to any such offer, with backpay and other benefits back to the date she would have started employment in the absence of the discriminatory termination of her hiring process.  The Decision orders ATF to “take appropriate corrective action to prevent any discrimination from occurring” at the Walnut Creek lab.  Macy will also be entitled to compensatory damages “if she can demonstrate that she suffered injuries as a direct result of the discrimination found to have occurred,” including compensation for emotional distress if any can be documented. Also, as prevailing party in the case, Macy will be entitled to be compensated for any attorney fees she has incurred in pressing forward her discrimination claim.