High Court LGBT Decision: Much at Stake in Clarifying Gray Area

A Supreme Court ruling on whether LGBT workers have federal civil rights protections could provide long-awaited clarity to the business community and have wide ripple effects on discrimination cases beyond the workplace, including health care and education.

“The positive of the Supreme Court taking this up is that we’ll have certainty,” said Seyfarth Shaw partner Sam Schwartz-Fenwick, who leads the firm’s LGBT affinity group. “For employers and employees, this has been a gray area.”

The trio of cases that the U.S. Supreme Court agreed to take up April 22—Altitude Express v. Zarda, Bostock v. Clayton County, GA, ...