Talk:Bostock v. Clayton County

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This article was the subject of a Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment, between 11 January 2021 and 13 March 2021. Further details are available on the course page. Student editor(s): Dudebob5420.

Above undated message substituted from Template:Dashboard.wikiedu.org assignment by PrimeBOT (talk) 18:15, 17 January 2022 (UTC)

Comment

The article has adequate information regarding the Bostock v. Clayton County, GA. There are a good amount of external links as well as good sourcing for all the articles. There wasn't a lot of talk on the case itself which would be fairly difficult to find I'm sure, but if there could be more that would help lay out more information for the reader. The background had plenty of information to set up the events of the trial which I appreciated. Overall, the sources were accurate and it was written in a fairly neutral tone which is absolutely ideal so I think there isn't much fixing left.--Mdog343 (talk) 21:35, 24 January 2020 (UTC)

Quotation to use for summary

It strikes me that the following is a quite apt summary of the holding in this case; wondered if this should be used instead of the current section quoted:

An employer violates Title VII when it intentionally fires an individual employee based in part on sex. It doesn’t matter if other factors besides the plaintiff's sex contributed to the decision. And it doesn’t matter if the employer treated women as a group the same when compared to men as a group. If the employer intentionally relies in part on an individual employee’s sex when deciding to discharge the employee—put differently, if changing the employee’s sex would have yielded a different choice by the employer—a statutory violation has occurred.

From https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/19pdf/17-1618_hfci.pdf at 9. Any thoughts appreciated! AleatoryPonderings (talk) 15:32, 15 June 2020 (UTC)

I do prefer that we pull quotes highlighted by third-parties, as to avoid the OR of what's important (Hence the quote of Gorsuch I added from NBC NEws' take). I think I've seen part of the above used elsewhere. However, let's not get too bogged down in quotes right now. I'm still looking for a good summary of Alito's and Kavanaugh's dissents from 3rd parties (I know why they dissented, but that's OR). --Masem (t) 15:49, 15 June 2020 (UTC)

Makes sense — thank you! AleatoryPonderings (talk) 15:56, 15 June 2020 (UTC)

Not that this isn't a bad angle, still trying to find a good analysis article but it was pointed out this was a statutory ruling (interpretation of law) rather than constitutional as past Title VII have been, so part of that quote might come into play. --Masem (t) 16:29, 15 June 2020 (UTC)

Proposed merge

• Bostock v. Clayton County, Georgia (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views)
• Altitude Express, Inc. v. Zarda (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views)
• R.G. & G.R. Harris Funeral Homes Inc. v. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views)

These cases were consolidated by the Supreme Court, and the single decision in Bostock v. Clayton County, Georgia covers all three cases. Because separate articles for each case splits the discussion of the procedural history of the same Supreme Court case, it would make more sense to our readers to merge all three cases into one. Mz7 (talk) 21:30, 15 June 2020 (UTC)

Disagree. Even though SCOTUS consolidated them, they are still separate cases. For example, Brown v. Board of Education is one Supreme Court ruling, but we have separate articles on the four other cases consolidated into Brown (Briggs v. Elliott, Davis v. County School Board of Prince Edward County, Gebhart v. Belton, and Bolling v. Sharpe). - Presidentman talk · contribs (Talkback) 21:46, 15 June 2020 (UTC)

 Request withdrawn – Ah, you're right. Looking into past SCOTUS cases on Wikipedia, it appears that we have not historically merged cases even though they were consolidated. Given this, I'm going to remove the merge tags, as I don't see any point in deviating from historical practice on Wikipedia for this particular case. Mz7 (talk) 22:00, 15 June 2020 (UTC)

"590 U.S. ___ (2020)"

What do the underscores mean? Do they need to be replaced with something?  Nixinova   T   C   02:54, 16 June 2020 (UTC)

All opinions of the SCOTUS (as well as all federal and state courts) get put into books; lower courts use the Federal Reporter (which uses the F.3d abbreviation you may see) ,but SCOTUS cases go to the United States Reports series, which is what "U.S." stands for. The first number would be the volume but the dash normally would be the page number, but as these are generally only published 6-7 years after the term, the ___ is used to indicate "page pending". --Masem (t) 03:50, 16 June 2020 (UTC)

Alright, thanks, I've added an explanatory link and hatnote.  Nixinova   T   C   05:55, 16 June 2020 (UTC)

Given the use of that template, I don't think that's how we want to use that (see the template's "what links here" to see it's primary use). There's {{ussc}} template that gives that information on the volume landing page (eg List of United States Supreme Court cases, volume 590) but if you check most other SCOTUS case, we don't provide that explanatory material on the case pages. --Masem (t) 06:12, 16 June 2020 (UTC)

Personally, I don't see any harm in including the explanatory footnote. Most Supreme Court cases are quite esoteric, and I suspect their articles are read primarily by readers who understand how to read legal citations. For a general audience, the notation is not as easily understood, and adding a bit more text for clarity can only benefit readers. Mz7 (talk) 07:51, 16 June 2020 (UTC)

Not saying that we can't but if you look to the infobox , you have that mass of legal citations that are pretty much indecipherable unless you've spent a bit of time reading on legal citations. If we go back to the last "major" SCOTUS case that we'd have had lots of readers on, being Obergefell v. Hodges, before it was published like here [en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Obergefell_v._Hodges&oldid=906653977] we didn't have the need of a footnote. (It is now published, but even then, it still can be confusing -- and there it wasn't using the ussc template so neither the volume nor U.S. were linked to help explain it (I just changed it out just now). --Masem (t) 12:31, 16 June 2020 (UTC)

Proposed merge of R.G. & G.R. Harris Funeral Homes Inc. v. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission into Bostock v. Clayton County, Georgia

This case was consolidated and decided together with Bostock. The Court's decision and the reactions to it should be covered only at Bostock, while this case's specific history can be merged to Bostock. Sandstein 09:52, 16 June 2020 (UTC)

Disagree - see the discussion just up this page at Talk:Bostock v. Clayton County, Georgia#Proposed merge Newystats (talk) 10:23, 16 June 2020 (UTC)

Disagree - perhaps a review of this page: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_overruled_United_States_Supreme_Court_decisions will help editor understand that just because a later ruling overrules the prior, doesn't decrease the value of a SCOTUS ruling. PeaceKeeper1234 11:27, 16 June 2020 (UTC)

• Factually Harris was not consolidated with Bostock (Altitude Express was, however), but the same decision was given for both cases. --Masem (t) 12:23, 16 June 2020 (UTC)
  • That said, thinking on this, I'm not opposed to a merge of these three since I know trying to making the decision common to all three is going to be a PITA (I've tried to stay ahead by using a main point back to Bostock from the other two.) Specifically with Harris, I've not seen a unique analysis on the transgender facets that are separate from the sexual orientation aspects in the decision that make a separate decision section necessary, yet. --Masem (t) 12:33, 16 June 2020 (UTC)
    • Maybe we could use section transclusion? I think it's useful to keep the prior and subsequent histories of the cases separate, but the common history at the Supreme Court will be annoying to maintain. Having it written on one page and transcluded to others is probably the best solution. — Wug·a·po·des​ 23:43, 18 June 2020 (UTC)
      • I gave it a shot on the other two pages, feel free to revert if you think it's a problem. — Wug·a·po·des​ 00:28, 20 June 2020 (UTC)

Strongly Disagree - just because a motion to consolidate was granted at SCOTUS they are still fundamentally different cases with different procedural histories. They each have their own opinions at lower court levels, some of which contain citations and the like that can help point to why SCOTUS found as they did. Simply because a case was overturned doesn't mean it has no value. nn123645 (talk) 14:02, 17 June 2020 (UTC)

Disagree but... I agree with nn123645 that the individual cases merit their own articles, but I think those pages should use the Court of Appeals infobox and be categorized as Court of Appeals cases - discussion of the SCOTUS decision should be concentrated here, so the other pages are really about the lower court cases. LegalSkeptic (talk) 03:14, 27 June 2020 (UTC)

If there was a significant amount of detail unique to the individual cases wholly separate from the Bostock decision either due to the background or something unusual in the case history, then this would make sense. But for all purposes, the background and case history of all three cases here are rather straightforward - a conflict, a district court filing, an appeal to federal circuit and then onto the Supreme. (In contrast, some of the various cases against the Trump administration have rather complex backgrounds before they end up consolidate that the separate article logic makes sense.) Or another way to consider this, if we only had created the Bostock article on news of the Supreme Court ruling, we'd never have created these other pages (though would have mentioned the cases obviously). --Masem (t) 04:26, 27 June 2020 (UTC)

Disagree - The consolidation of the cases by the supreme court was a procedural decision, and the cases are still completely separate topics. Additionally, the inclusion of another case as a subcategory of another is highly irregular, and would produce a very congested article in terms of formatting and structure. /Tpdwkouaa (talk) 15:42, 17 June 2020 (UTC)

Arguably, not really an issue. If we were to merge, there would likely be one H2 heading for "Case Histories", and a H3 for each case history. Everything else: legal background, and SCOTUS procedural and decision, is the same as this point. And given how "little" there is at each of the three cases, this is easily manageable. --Masem (t) 00:25, 19 June 2020 (UTC)

Proposed merge of Altitude Express, Inc. v. Zarda into Bostock v. Clayton County, Georgia

This case was consolidated and decided together with Bostock. The Court's decision and the reactions to it should be covered only at Bostock, while this case's specific history can be merged to Bostock. Sandstein 09:52, 16 June 2020 (UTC)

Disagree - see the discussion just up this page at Talk:Bostock v. Clayton County, Georgia#Proposed merge Newystats (talk) 10:24, 16 June 2020 (UTC)

Disagree - perhaps a review of this page: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_overruled_United_States_Supreme_Court_decisions will help editor understand that just because a later ruling overrules the prior, doesn't decrease the value of a SCOTUS ruling. PeaceKeeper1234 11:27, 16 June 2020 (UTC)

Disagree - per my vote at the other redirect proposal. /Tpdwkouaa (talk) 15:43, 17 June 2020 (UTC)

'Reactions'

As the scholarly/expert commentary comes in—this and this are just the beginning—would it make sense to separate out reactions from the public/members of advocacy groups and those of legal scholars and other experts? AleatoryPonderings (talk) 13:34, 16 June 2020 (UTC)

Most likely yes, eg, there's definitely a distinction on how legal expects see Gorsuch now with this decision, separate from the immediate impact on LGBT rights. But at the same time, we want more a summary level of opinions, not every one and their brother's commentary. It's getting towards that right now. Broad strokes would be better if we can. --Masem (t) 13:54, 16 June 2020 (UTC)

Definitely agree – I've probably been guilty of adding too many myself, so would definitely welcome some pruning when things die down a bit. AleatoryPonderings (talk) 14:37, 16 June 2020 (UTC)

Basically just keep an eye out for patterns or, like in the case of that Christian conservative article I added from the WaPost, summaries from groups. Individual speakers are okay but its too easy to insert individual voices in these things. --Masem (t) 14:39, 16 June 2020 (UTC)

The part which tries to characterize justices

@Masem: With respect to this [1] The so-called "consevatives", obviously did not take the view you ascribe to them (although some may have). The statement as you have it is evidently false, wrong, vague, or unneeded and not NPOV. (Not to mention, if a judge asks a question it does not mean you can be certain they agree with a particular premise). Moreover, the presentation of one side of the argument there[2], is very poor as introduction because it colors what comes later, and it is more so, unneeded -- we know what the justices including the claimed conservatives think of the issues because they told us yesterday in long opinions. What we should have in that intro section is just short clear NPOV statement of the issue argued. Alanscottwalker (talk) 16:29, 16 June 2020 (UTC)

No, you're right, I see what you mean. There is usually a discussion of what was talked about at orals, who said what/etc. but I would need to do more research on those that observed the events to make that more neutral. I took it out (undo my reversion) for now. However this section would include observers' pre-opinions of which way justices may go based on questions asked/etc., separate from the actual opinion. --Masem (t) 16:52, 16 June 2020 (UTC)

Eg Taking SCOTUSBlog's analysis from the orals [3] as one examples shows, OR-ily, some surspire at how Gorsuch ended up, but we can still factually write from that and others general high-level characterization of Gorsuch's questioning without precluding towards the decision. That will just need some time to do it neutrally. --Masem (t) 16:55, 16 June 2020 (UTC)

If there is discussion of oral arguments, it should center on the parties' arguments (I get that one could say justices argue, but that is rather confusing as they are there to judge -- they can be doing all kinds of things, of course, but generally, they are dealing with what the parties have argued). Alanscottwalker (talk) 17:05, 16 June 2020 (UTC)

Fair point, though as I said, when I've seen oral arguments discussed, the sources themselves do try to qualify/guess which direction the Justices will go too. But as I said, I need to draw on more sources to write a better summary, what you left is fine for now. --Masem (t) 17:08, 16 June 2020 (UTC)

Thanks by the way for going back on the edit, but although I get that some sources try to divine what the justices were thinking in the argument, after the decision it rather seems like just preliminary guess-work. -- Alanscottwalker (talk) 19:02, 16 June 2020 (UTC)

I'd have to spend the time to see if anyone today/recently found the result surprising based on the orals to make that jump, though it is still worthwhile to address what the question focus was on overall. --Masem (t) 19:04, 16 June 2020 (UTC)

"Supreme Court rules that gay and transgender people are protected from employment discrimination" on main page

As I intrepret the Court this should be 'Supreme Court rules that gay, transgender, and straight people are protected from employment discrimination'. Is it not so? GangofOne (talk) 21:58, 16 June 2020 (UTC)

Nobody has ever been demonstrably discriminated against in employment for being straight; that's why the main page is worded as it is. Sceptre (talk) 22:27, 16 June 2020 (UTC)

Nobody you know. Anyway, it could happen. So for equal rights, it should be stated symmetrically. Although I can't prove any such case, there has been a claim that a straight guy was eased out of a job, where everyone else was gay. This was in San Francsico, and was mentioned in Herb Caen's column. (not recently) GangofOne (talk) 01:03, 17 June 2020 (UTC)

While the wording in the "Held" part is quoted as "gay or transgender" which we cannot change, we are presenting as most articles have reported: protection from employment discrimination based on sexual orientation/preference or gender identity. So that will automatically cover heterosexuals as well as gay people, and will cover non-transgender (eg: those that identify the same as their biological gender) people as well. Now, how this will intersect with things like Affirmation Action (hiring preferentially underrepresented people) is unknown (see Grutter v. Bollinger) and, like how this will intersection with religious aspects, is an unknown left open. --Masem (t) 03:22, 17 June 2020 (UTC)

Case name in article title, citations, and first sentence of the lead

Just off the top of my head, my understanding of Bluebook guidelines for case names is that the “, Georgia” should be omitted. The proper case name for general usage is merely Bostock v. Clayton County; County may be abbreviated in endnote citations. Am I missing or forgetting something? Antinoos69 (talk) 20:43, 17 June 2020 (UTC)

You're right, even SCOTUS page lacks the state. Moving here... ---Masem (t) 20:53, 17 June 2020 (UTC)

on the Textualism section

Only going by how many articles I've seen come up since Monday on this, the Textualism analysis section has a lot of room for expansion on both sides of the argument (those seeing Gorsuch following Scalia's model, and then the strong dissent of textualism "pirate ship" quote from Alito) This is going to be one of academic analysis so this probably needs more from legal experts to present more understanding why this case's ruling was significant and of great debate in just this area, wholly separate from the issue of LGBT rights. --Masem (t) 14:53, 18 June 2020 (UTC)

Masem, in that case, it could be something we upgrade to its own level 2 section heading. We could have a section titled "Analysis" or "Legal analysis" and another titled "Reactions". Mz7 (talk) 18:06, 18 June 2020 (UTC)

Even were the "prirate ship" rhetoric of import as you seem to think it is, the long quote is undue, "pirate ship" is a two word quote and the rest of the thought can easily be summed up in a few more words -- and the long quote is out-of-place. The dissent is discussed in the dissent section, reiterating it again gives the minority opinion twice space of the majority, which is textbook undue. The reaction or analysis section should be for what independent legal scholars say about, eg "pirate ship"s, if it has any import beyond a primary minority (not the case-law--the majority is the law) opinion of colorful phrasing. -- Alanscottwalker (talk) 18:31, 18 June 2020 (UTC)

It's clear that the issue of Gorsuch's textualism approach and Alito's statement against that is a wholly separate point from the matter that LGBT employment rights are protected, which is going to be the other factor this case is noted for (similar in nature to doctrines like the Chevron deference), going on the volume written just about that factor in the last few days. Alito's quote is getting a lot of attention as the starting point for the counter argument, and maybe when expanded it will make more sense for the full quote there. --Masem (t) 20:34, 18 June 2020 (UTC)

Sexual orientation and gender identity

The opening sentence of this article is "[...] the Court held that Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 protects employees against discrimination because of their sexual orientation or gender identity."

I've read most, though not all, of the majority opinion, and the majority opinion is very careful to state that it applies (only) to gay or transgender people (e.g. p. 33 "An employer who fires an individual merely for being gay or transgender defies the law.") This is not the same as prohibiting all discrimination based on sexual orientation or gender identity. As far as I can see, this ruling states nothing about bisexuals, and I'm not sure whether it applies to all gender identities. For example, if an employer fires all their employees that are attracted to both men and women, then they are not discriminating based on sex (as opposed to an employer who fires men that are attracted to men, but will not fire women that are attracted to men).

If the majority opinion contains the phrase that employees are protected based on sexual orientation or gender identity, then an explicit reference to that passage should be added. If not, I propose to reword every occurrence in the article to be more aligned to the majority opinion: "protection for being gay or transgender". Florrat (talk) 22:24, 18 June 2020 (UTC)

Unlike Congress, what SCOTUS says is not hard language, it's case law and thus meant to be interpreted by lower courts not for exact language but what the ruling points out (outside of the specific orders). And this is why they spend double-digits of pages to explain out their rationale (which does several times in the majority discuss sexual orientation). (This is why courts avoid trying to legislation from the bench, their words are not meant to be taken as legislation) Legal experts (the RSes we're using) see this projecting across all sexual orientations, but we do reflect that the "held" statement only states "gays and transgender". --Masem (t) 22:42, 18 June 2020 (UTC)

Ok, it seems fair that if legal experts interpret the text this way, then we should, too. Thanks for the explanation. I'm still confused how the argument in the majority opinion can possibly be applied to bisexual individuals, so if you know of any legal expert explaining that case, I would be happy to receive a link. Florrat (talk) 19:52, 19 June 2020 (UTC)

I mean, I see the logic of your question in taking the same logic used in the argument in the case, and can see that a bisexual or someone claiming asexuality would not fit "exactly", but until a specific case is brought to the court to challenge that specific aspect - and if it considered not covered by this case for some reason, its being read the courts, as well as prior EEOC rulings, will cover it. But that's why we can be clear that the opinion stated one thing, but the decision is seen to be read as another. --Masem (t) 20:27, 19 June 2020 (UTC)

The decision states that discrimination against homosexuals and transgenders is discrimination because it has to do with what is aproppriate behaviour for someone based on their legal sex. Since the decision is grounded on legal sex, it can be used by courts to ban all discrimination that can be reduced to sexual attraction between two adults. That is my opinion, at least. Nxavar (talk) 10:05, 22 June 2020 (UTC)

I'm sorry, but legal experts do not in fact interpret the text this way. The case states that 'gay and transgender' people are protected from employment discrimination but does not include all sexual orientations nor define what constitutes a 'transgender' identity; we cannot interpret this to mean any "gender identity". For example, legal experts have pointed out that it is unclear whether or not this means only people who identify with the opposite sex from their birth sex or if this could also include those who identify as nonbinary. See page 14 of this article in the Connecticut Law Review [4]. There is also debate in the legal community over whether or not bisexuals are covered: see this article in the University of Miami Race and Social Justice Law Review [5] and also this one in the Northwestern University Law Review [6]. The description in the lead must be changed to reflect what the case actually says. Lilipo25 (talk) 23:03, 21 February 2021 (UTC)

Basically, the situation is that it will depend on how the lower court us this decision (including all the rationale including Gorsuch's textualism) to rule differently for transgender than the other protected classes, if that will create a split among the circuits, and yet another case for SCOTUS to rule on, or if Congress will proactively pass a bill to specifically address it. Legal expects can argue that the language may not protect transgender (a valid concern) but they may not be correct because there's no case law to see if that's been test yet. It is valid to include their concerns, but we can't change the main way that this decision has been presented until it is clear that case law doesn't extend that way. --Masem (t) 23:51, 21 February 2021 (UTC)

True, it may well depend on how the lower courts interpret it (and their interpretations may end up coming back around to the Supreme Court in a few years for more clarity if and when they conflict), but for now, we can only present the decision as it was written and not as we hope it will end up being interpreted. It doesn't say either sexual orientation or gender identity, so we should be clear about what it does say.Lilipo25 (talk) 00:04, 22 February 2021 (UTC)

Except that unlike Congressional laws where wording is important, court decisions do no rely on the semantics of the language used, which is why these decisions tend to be lengthy to give further courts the framework to evaluate the situation. While it is true that the "holding" only says "gay" or "transsexual" (since those were the specific conditions of the three underlying cases), most legal experts reading through Gorsuch's support seem to believe it would apply to all parts of the LGBTQ+ picture as well as gender identity. eg "bisexual" does not appear at all in Gorsuch's opinion (it only appears in references in one of the dissents), but how Gorsuch tries to define "sex" from the original bill would not only just apply to gay/homosexual relations but any and all alternative preferences between consenting adults. It is probably worthwhile to make sure to explore what legal experts overall expect the decision extends to, including those that think it might not be as extensive, but I do believe that most do not think it is as limited as you're suggested. --Masem (t) 01:47, 22 February 2021 (UTC)

I'm not arguing that all scholars think the ruling is going to end up excluding nonbinary or bisexual people (they don't), just that SCOTUS didn't define whether it does or not so there's debate among the experts on what has been protected. Until the lower courts start ruling on those aspects, I'm afraid we're stuck with just presenting what SCOTUS actually said for accuracy. Lilipo25 (talk) 02:03, 22 February 2021 (UTC)

Hello Wikipedians, I have been working on a page for Gerald Bostock and believe his story meets the notability standard for a stand alone Wikipedia page. I noticed my attempt at creating a page for Gerald Bostock was reverted and was curious to hear why other Wikipedias do not believe this new page should be created. Serenewilliams (talk) 16:35, 11 May 2023 (UTC)