A group of nontransgender students in the Boyertown Area School District sued the school district for allowing transgender students to access facilities that were consistent with their gender identity. The students claimed that the school district’s policy violated their right to privacy and created a hostile school environment. Following an evidentiary hearing, the District Court rejected each of those claims. The students appealed. On January 23, 2018, the National Center for Lesbian Rights,...
Our Voices
The U.S. Supreme Court ruled in Fulton v. City of Philadelphia that the City of Philadelphia violated the Free Exercise Clause of the First Amendment by failing to give Catholic Social Services (CSS) an exemption from the nondiscrimination provision in city contracts for foster care providers, even though the contract authorized exemptions and the City had granted exemptions to other providers. The opinion by the court written by Chief Justice Roberts was joined by Justices Breyer, Kagan,...
In May 2017, the National Center for Lesbian Rights and Teresa Renaker of Renaker Hasselman LLP appealed a decision by the federal Office of Personnel Management (OPM) to collect an overpayment of benefits that resulted from decades of discrimination. Joan Krall started working for the National Park Service in 1960 when she was 17 years old. After 38 years of service, she retired in 1998. At the time of her retirement, Ms. Krall had lived together with her loving partner, Joan Biordi, for 21...
The National Center for Lesbian Rights (NCLR) and co-counsel Sharon McKee of Hangley, Aronchick, Segal and Pudlin reached a settlement agreement on behalf of NCLR client Jennifer Harris with Penn State and its women’s basketball coach Rene Portland and athletic director Tim Curley. This groundbreaking lawsuit was filed in Federal District Court in the Middle District of Pennsylvania. Harris alleged discrimination based on race, gender, sexual orientation and invasion of privacy. The...