Cruz Lines

Florida’s Draconian Bathroom Penalties & Faux “Intimacy”

2023-09-01T08:15:00.000-07:00

Everybody's searching for intimacy Ooh ooh ooh ooh Everybody's hurting for intimacy Ooh ooh ooh oohThe New York Times reported (Florida Approves Tough Discipline for College Staff Who Break Bathroom Law) that on Wednesday, August 23, 2023 the Florida Board of Education adopted new rules requiring the firing of employees at the state’s 28 regional college campuses who twice use (“

Masking White Supremacy

2023-06-30T08:27:00.002-07:00

“They reached for tomorrow / But tomorrow’s more of the same”In its decision in Students for Fair Admissions, Inc. v. President and Fellows of Harvard College (SFFA), the Republican-appointed supermajority of the Supreme Court held that the use of race in the undergraduate admissions programs of Harvard College and the University of North Carolina was unlawful under Title VI of the

Don’t Worry About Roe, Conservative Prof Misleadingly Argues

2020-10-08T13:10:00.000-07:00

“Let yourself go,/ Relax,/ And let yourself go.Relax,/ You’ve got yourself tied up in a knot.” I had originally reacted with incredulity about a recent effort to paint Amy Coney Barrett’s nomination to the Supreme Court as largely irrelevant to the fate of Roe v. Wade and constitutional protection for reproductive rights. I drafted a blog entry with the title and epigram above. But

Damn the Consequences, Gorsuch Says

2020-07-10T15:08:00.001-07:00

“So let the chips fall where they mayAnd let these matters be settled this wayWe'll let our judgement get carried away” Yesterday, the Supreme Court ruled, as described by Chief Justice Roberts in his dissent, that “a huge swathe of Oklahoma is actually a Creek Indian reservation, on which the State may not prosecute serious crimes committed by Indians.” Three and a half weeks earlier, the

Title VII Means What It Says, Supreme Court Rules, Cheering LGBT Workers

2020-06-15T08:41:00.000-07:00

“But you got dreams He’ll never take away” In Bostock v. Clayton County, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled today that firing employees because they are “homosexual or transgender” violates the ban on sex discrimination in Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, the major federal employment discrimination statute. This is a position LGBT people have taken since shortly after the statute

Respectfully, You Lose: Masterpiece Cakeshop gets cited in state court

2018-06-07T20:35:00.000-07:00

“Oh baby refrain from breaking my heart” In what appears to be the first judicial opinion to cite the Supreme Court’s ruling in Masterpiece Cakeshop v. Colorado Civil Rights Commission, an Arizona appeals court has rejected a claim by a hand-painted and hand-lettered stationery business and its Christian owners for a religious exemption from Phoenix’s law forbidding

2018-06-05T14:02:00.000-07:00

Is It the End of the Line for Charlie Craig & David Mullins’s suit against Jack Phillips? Masterpiece Cakeshop as Bush v. Gore “Why leave me standing here? Let me know the way” A number of commentators have already noted a similarity between the Supreme Court’s decision yesterday in Masterpiece Cakeshop and its decision in 2000 in Bush v. Gore.

Equal Is Equal* (*some exceptions may apply): Marriage Equality in Texas and Pidgeon v. Turner

2017-06-30T11:17:00.000-07:00

“Found alternative sides to the things that were said” Acting in Pidgeon v. Turner (HT @JoeDunman for the opinion copy), the Supreme Court of Texas (SCOTX) has gratuitously protracted the efforts of the city of Houston to treat its lesbian, gay, and bisexual employees constitutionally and hence equally. The court unanimously reversed a lower appeals court’s order allowing

Full Appeals Court Rules Federal Law Forbids Sexual Orientation Discrimination in Employment

2017-04-04T18:06:00.000-07:00

You’re applying for a job/So you’re filling out a form And for all intents and purposes/You fit into the norm Until it says to list your next of kin/But there's no box to fit you in In a landmark decision, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit has held that the federal statute barring sex discrimination in employment forbids sexual orientation discrimination. The 8-3

Appeals Court Sustains Temporary Restraint on Trump Immigration EO

2017-02-10T11:31:00.000-08:00

“You got your tricks Good for you But there’s no gambit I don’t see through” Yesterday the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit unanimously held that the federal trial judge in Seattle who granted a nationwide temporary restraining order (TRO) suspending Trump’s immigration ban executive order (EO) did not exceed his discretion. The Court of Appeals therefore rejected Donald

Sanitizing Scalia

2016-11-20T11:17:00.001-08:00

“Memories to be erased And nasty old stuff you’ve been hiding” The Harvard Law Review recently published its issue dedicated in memoriam to the late Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia. I know the point of such exercises is to say nice things about the person memorialized. But I would hope that even an academic such as Martha Minow, Dean of the Harvard Law School, whose position

Trump and the Promise of LGBTQ Equality

2016-11-09T09:13:00.000-08:00

I’ve always got my head in the clouds Hope that I could find One of them that’s silver-lined As I write, it appears that Donald J. Trump will take office as the forty-fifth President of the United States. Some (many?) people, myself included, deeply feared this and are anxious or worse about the prospect. So, in an effort to help myself confront this new reality, I offer this

Federal Government Issues Guidance for Schools, Educational Programs, re: Transgender Students

2016-05-13T10:37:00.000-07:00

“When it’s time to change, you’ve got to rearrange Who you are and what you're gonna be” The Department of Justice and the Department of Education today issued a significant guidance document today to help schools comply with their obligations toward transgender students under Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972 (“Title IX”) – which is a federal statute modeled after part of the

Abbott vs. Hamilton

2016-01-08T13:17:00.000-08:00

“That was a real nice declaration. Welcome to the present, we’re running a real nation.” Happy New Year, everyone! I’m writing today from the Annual Meeting of the Association of American Law Schools. After having just attended a Constitutional Law Section session on “Resistance and Recognition,” I returned to my room to see this article by Buzzfeed’s Chris Geidner: Texas

Dred Davis?

2015-09-23T22:28:00.000-07:00

“Read it in the writing on the wall” I confess to being rather tired of hearing too much about the extremely small minority of individuals actively resisting the Supreme Court’s marriage equality decision in Obergefell v. Hodges this summer. But, to quote Justice Scalia’s acerbic opinion in the Court’s 1992 case Planned Parenthood v. Casey, “it is beyond human nature to leave

Fear and Loving in Washington

2015-04-27T12:26:00.001-07:00

“And you and me are free to be you and me” It is surprisingly quiet here outside the Supreme Court of the United States the day before the Court hears oral arguments in Obergefell v. Hodges and the other three marriage equality cases it is considering this term. There are a few more protesters, defenders of the old order, than there were yesterday. The lines, one for the

Unveiling Marriage Equality?

2015-01-17T08:18:00.000-08:00

“’Cause maybe they’ve seen us and welcome us all”