FROM SELMA TO PRESENT DAY

Posted on January 29, 2015 in Consulting

The recent celebration of the 50^th anniversary of the historic civil rights march in Selma reminds me of a conversation I had with a shuttle van driver in Memphis, a city unfortunately associated with tragedy in the struggle for racial justice.  I was in Memphis defending a company against an EEOC suit.   On one of my trips, an older African-American man picked me up in the Dollar Rental Car shuttle.  He asked where I was from, and said, “Houston, I hear you have something different there, your first female mayor.”   (Mayor Parker had just been elected.)  I said, “No sir, we’ve had women serve as mayor before, we just elected our first openly lesbian mayor. “  To which he replied, “Now that is different!”    I should have told him that Annise Parker and a former City Attorney (who is African-American) defeated a white man with substantial financial resources in the primary.   Imagine his thoughts having been old enough to remember Dr. King’s assassination not far from where we were that moment.

At the time Mayor Parker was elected, and my conversation in Memphis, six states allowed civil unions among gay people.  That number is now 36: 3 by popular vote, 8 by legislation, 25 by court decisions.  A counter-revolution spurred fourteen constitutional bans against same sex unions.   And just two weeks ago, on January 16, 2015, the U.S. Supreme Court agreed to hear four states’ bans against same sex marriage.

The debate places people with sincere, deeply held religious beliefs against civil rights activist.  The popular debate seems nearly evenly divided.  A remarkable shift in popular support for permitting gay marriage has recent polls showing 55% of Americans support it, up from 27% in 1996.  The issue could not be more divisive.

The EEOC does not, however, see the issue as debatable.  Even without a clear mandate under Title VII, the EEOC is aggressively pursuing lawsuits based not only on sexual orientation but also based on transgender.   On September 25, 2014, the EEOC filed two suits on behalf of transgender employees.  The EEOC sued Lakeland Eye Clinic of Lakeland, Florida for alleged discrimination against a man transitioning to a woman charging that the employer fired her after she (formerly a man) began to present herself as a woman.   In the second suit, the EEOC sued Harris Funeral Homes of Garden City, Michigan under similar allegations.

These are ground breaking lawsuits that likely could not have been imagined in the 54 mile march from Selma to Montgomery.  As we recognize the successes of the civil rights movement of the 1950s — and the struggles before and that persist – I think there need not be any controversy over gay rights in the workplace.  Whether we live in a state that bars discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation or not, there is no reason to allow any type of bigotry into the workplace.  It should not matter.  Job performance has nothing to do with gender or sex.

If you want to hear about what happens when sex and work are intertwined, come to my February 3, 2015 Lunch and Learn: Romance in the Workplace.  Hope to see you there.