R.G. & G.R. Harris Funeral Homes, Inc. v. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission: Brief of Professors Samuel R. Bagenstos, Michael C. Dorf, Martin S. Lederman, Leah M. Litman, and Margo Schlanger as Amici Curiae in Support of Respondent Stephens

Authors

Sameul Bagenstos, University of Michigan Law School
Leah Litman, University of Michigan Law SchoolFollow
Margo Schlanger, University of Michigan Law SchoolFollow

Document Type

Brief

Publication Date

7-3-2019

Abstract

Amici are legal scholars who teach and write on constitutional law and civil rights law. They submit this brief to call attention to one particular means of resolving this case that would not require the Court to determine whether Title VII prohibits discrimination against transgender individuals based upon their transgender status, as such. More broadly, amici seek to offer guidance on how to interpret Title VII in cases where employers require employees to comply with sex-specific dress, grooming, and presentation requirements in the workplace.

In order to resolve this case, it is not necessary for the Court to decide whether Section 703(a) of Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, 42 U.S.C. § 2000e-2(a), prohibits discrimination against transgender people based upon their transgender status, as such; nor need it decide, as Petitioner suggests, Pet. 2, whether the term "sex" in Title VII should be "[r]edefin[ed]" to include "transgender status."

A simpler and more familiar reading of the statute, one grounded in and informed by this Court's jurisprudence, demonstrates why Petitioner R.G. & G.R. Harris Funeral Homes, Inc. ("Harris Homes") violated Title VII: Harris Homes concededly discharged Respondent Aimee Stephens because she planned to disregard certain workplace norms that Harris Homes' owner and director imposed only upon funeral directors whom he considered to be "men." And Harris Homes insisted that Stephens comply with those norms for "male" funeral directors only because of the reproductive organs with which Stephens was born, a classification unambiguously made "because of [her] sex" according to a longstanding, familiar definition of that term that everyone accepts.

Comments

Amicus: Bagenstos, Professor Samuel R.; Dorf, Professor Michael C.; Lederman, Professor Martin S.; Litman, Professor Leah M.; Schlanger, Professor Margo

Recommended Citation

Bagenstos, Sameul; Litman, Leah; and Schlanger, Margo, "R.G. & G.R. Harris Funeral Homes, Inc. v. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission: Brief of Professors Samuel R. Bagenstos, Michael C. Dorf, Martin S. Lederman, Leah M. Litman, and Margo Schlanger as Amici Curiae in Support of Respondent Stephens" (2019). Appellate Briefs. 49.
https://repository.law.umich.edu/briefs/49