National
High court hears arguments in LGBT discrimination case
Student group wants to deny gays full participation
The issue of whether a religious student organization can deny full participation to LGBT people and maintain eligibility as an official group at a public university came before the U.S. Supreme Court on Monday.
The case of Christian Legal Society v. Martinez came before the high court after the University of California in Hastings denied the Hastings Christian Fellowship status as an official student group on the grounds that it prohibits LGBT people from taking positions within group leadership.
In the 2004 academic year, the school affiliated itself with the Christian Legal Society, which has bylaws saying that officers must abstain from “acts of the sinful nature” that includes “unrepentant participation in or advocacy of a sexually immoral lifestyle,” including homosexual behavior.
Consequently, the group has no right to meet on campus, can’t communicate through the law school’s newsletter or weekly e-mail announcement, and can’t receive school funding. The Hastings Christian Fellowship contends the school’s decision violates the group’s First Amendment rights of association and free speech.
Arguing on behalf of the Christian group before the Supreme Court was Michael McConnell, a law professor at Stanford Law School and former judge for the U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit. He said that the non-discrimination policy at the law school infringes on the beliefs of chapter members and is a “front assault on freedom of association.”
“A public forum for speech must be open and inclusive, but participants in the argument must be entitled to their own voice,” McConnell said.
He said the policy at the law school would mean that an NAACP chapter would “have to allow a racist skinhead” to participate in board meetings to maintain eligibility as an official school group.
On the other side of the argument and representing the college was Gregory Garre, a partner at the D.C.-based office of Latham & Watkin and a former solicitor general for President George W. Bush.
Garre said the non-discrimination policy the school has in place is neutral and doesn’t target any particular viewpoint or make a distinction between religious and non-religious speech.
“The whole purpose of the policy is to stay out of the argument and have an all-comers policy,” he said.
Garre said similar non-discrimination policies are “not uncommon and reasonable policy” and in place at many colleges, including Georgetown University Law School.
Indicating that LGBT people may in fact be interested in the Hastings Christian Fellowship, Garre noted the record shows that an out lesbian took part in the group’s activities before the group affiliated itself with the national organization.
“The record shows she participated in the discussions,” he said. “The officer of the group said he enjoyed having her there.”
During oral arguments before the Supreme Court, justices volleyed questions at both attorneys on issues ranging from whether the non-discrimination was applied consistently to all college groups to the tradition of giving schools deference in non-discrimination policies.
Associate Justice Antonin Scalia asked several questions about whether the school had been consistently applying its policy to all groups in at the college and whether the standards for the non-discrimination policy had morphed since the lawsuit began.
He said the current policy would allow Democrats to become leaders in a Republican group or allow atheists to conduct Bible classes in a Christian group.
Also expressing concern was Associate Justice Samuel Alito. He questioned whether current policy would enable vehemently anti-Muslim people to take over the leadership of a Muslim group at the school.
But Associate Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg dismissed the notion that the policy could allow for takeover of some groups, calling such ideas “hypotheticals about sabotage takeover that haven’t happened.” She noted that the law school’s current policy enables diversity.
“Hastings takes the position that it favors diversity not just among the groups, but within the groups,” Ginsburg said.
Also demonstrative some apparent sympathy for the school’s policy was Associate Justice Sonia Sotomayor, who asked whether the policy actually prohibited the group from fulfilling in its mission or meant that the group was being “ostracized or excluded from the school.”
Following the oral arguments, Shannon Minter, legal director for the National Center of Lesbian Rights, told DC Agenda the proceedings went “fantastically well” for the defendants, although he said predicting how justices will rule was difficult.
“They recognized that the policy that’s in front of the court is all-comers policy,” Minter said. “It was just very encouraging that a lot of justices understand that that is, under their existing doctrine, a viewpoint-neutral policy.”
A number of national organizations weighed in both sides of the issue, filing friend-of-the-court briefs with plaintiffs and defendants.
In a statement, Jon Davidson, legal director of Lambda Legal, which filed a brief in support of the law school, said plaintiffs put forth arguments that are substantively ludicrous.
“No one is telling CLS that they can’t shut their doors to whomever they want,” Davidson said. “But they can’t do that if they expect university funds. It’s wrong of them to expect taxpayers and students to pick up the tab for engaging in discrimination against select Hastings’ students.”
Davidson called the lawsuit “another case of an anti-gay group claiming it deserves sympathy when its foot hurts due to kicking gay people in the head.”
But Mat Staver, a prominent social conservative and founder of the Liberty Counsel, said in a statement that the current policy jeopardizes First Amendment rights for the Christian group and potentially others.
“Of all places, one would think a public law school would respect the First Amendment,” he said. “The First Amendment is strong medicine to political correctness. If the government can drive out Christian viewpoints today, it can drive out any viewpoint tomorrow.”
A decision in the case is expected before the end of the current term for the Supreme Court in July.
New York
Men convicted of murdering two men in NYC gay bar drugging scheme sentenced
One of the victims, John Umberger, was D.C. political consultant
A New York judge on Wednesday sentenced three men convicted of killing a D.C. political consultant and another man who they targeted at gay bars in Manhattan.
NBC New York notes a jury in February convicted Jayqwan Hamilton, Jacob Barroso, and Robert DeMaio of murder, robbery, and conspiracy in relation to druggings and robberies that targeted gay bars in Manhattan from March 2021 to June 2022.
John Umberger, a 33-year-old political consultant from D.C., and Julio Ramirez, a 25-year-old social worker, died. Prosecutors said Hamilton, Barroso, and DeMaio targeted three other men at gay bars.
The jury convicted Hamilton and DeMaio of murdering Umberger. State Supreme Court Judge Felicia Mennin sentenced Hamilton and DeMaio to 40 years to life in prison.
Barroso, who was convicted of killing Ramirez, received a 20 years to life sentence.
National
Medical groups file lawsuit over Trump deletion of health information
Crucial datasets included LGBTQ, HIV resources
Nine private medical and public health advocacy organizations, including two from D.C., filed a lawsuit on May 20 in federal court in Seattle challenging what it calls the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services’s illegal deletion of dozens or more of its webpages containing health related information, including HIV information.
The lawsuit, filed in the United States District Court for the Western District of Washington, names as defendants Robert F. Kennedy Jr., secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) and HHS itself, and several agencies operating under HHS and its directors, including the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the National Institutes of Health, and the Food and Drug Administration.
“This action challenges the widespread deletion of public health resources from federal agencies,” the lawsuit states. “Dozens (if not more) of taxpayer-funded webpages, databases, and other crucial resources have vanished since January 20, 2025, leaving doctors, nurses, researchers, and the public scrambling for information,” it says.
“These actions have undermined the longstanding, congressionally mandated regime; irreparably harmed Plaintiffs and others who rely on these federal resources; and put the nation’s public health infrastructure in unnecessary jeopardy,” the lawsuit continues.
It adds, “The removal of public health resources was apparently prompted by two recent executive orders – one focused on ‘gender ideology’ and the other targeting diversity, equity, and inclusion (‘DEI’) programs. Defendants implemented these executive orders in a haphazard manner that resulted in the deletion (inadvertent or otherwise) of health-related websites and databases, including information related to pregnancy risks, public health datasets, information about opioid-use disorder, and many other valuable resources.”
The lawsuit does not mention that it was President Donald Trump who issued the two executive orders in question.
A White House spokesperson couldn’t immediately be reached for comment on the lawsuit.
While not mentioning Trump by name, the lawsuit names as defendants in addition to HHS Secretary Robert Kennedy Jr., Matthew Buzzelli, acting director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention; Jay Bhattacharya, director of the National Institutes of Health; Martin Makary, commissioner of the Food and Drug Administration; Thomas Engels, administrator of the Health Resources and Services Administration; and Charles Ezell, acting director of the Office of Personnel Management.
The 44-page lawsuit complaint includes an addendum with a chart showing the titles or descriptions of 49 “affected resource” website pages that it says were deleted because of the executive orders. The chart shows that just four of the sites were restored after initially being deleted.
Of the 49 sites, 15 addressed LGBTQ-related health issues and six others addressed HIV issues, according to the chart.
“The unannounced and unprecedented deletion of these federal webpages and datasets came as a shock to the medical and scientific communities, which had come to rely on them to monitor and respond to disease outbreaks, assist physicians and other clinicians in daily care, and inform the public about a wide range of healthcare issues,” the lawsuit states.
“Health professionals, nonprofit organizations, and state and local authorities used the websites and datasets daily in care for their patients, to provide resources to their communities, and promote public health,” it says.
Jose Zuniga, president and CEO of the International Association of Providers of AIDS Care (IAPAC), one of the organizations that signed on as a plaintiff in the lawsuit, said in a statement that the deleted information from the HHS websites “includes essential information about LGBTQ+ health, gender and reproductive rights, clinical trial data, Mpox and other vaccine guidance and HIV prevention resources.”
Zuniga added, “IAPAC champions evidence-based, data-informed HIV responses and we reject ideologically driven efforts that undermine public health and erase marginalized communities.”
Lisa Amore, a spokesperson for Whitman-Walker Health, D.C.’s largest LGBTQ supportive health services provider, also expressed concern about the potential impact of the HHS website deletions.
“As the region’s leader in HIV care and prevention, Whitman-Walker Health relies on scientific data to help us drive our resources and measure our successes,” Amore said in response to a request for comment from the Washington Blade.
“The District of Columbia has made great strides in the fight against HIV,” Amore said. “But the removal of public facing information from the HHS website makes our collective work much harder and will set HIV care and prevention backward,” she said.
The lawsuit calls on the court to issue a declaratory judgement that the “deletion of public health webpages and resources is unlawful and invalid” and to issue a preliminary or permanent injunction ordering government officials named as defendants in the lawsuit “to restore the public health webpages and resources that have been deleted and to maintain their web domains in accordance with their statutory duties.”
It also calls on the court to require defendant government officials to “file a status report with the Court within twenty-four hours of entry of a preliminary injunction, and at regular intervals, thereafter, confirming compliance with these orders.”
The health organizations that joined the lawsuit as plaintiffs include the Washington State Medical Association, Washington State Nurses Association, Washington Chapter of the American Academy of Pediatrics, Academy Health, Association of Nurses in AIDS Care, Fast-Track Cities Institute, International Association of Providers of AIDS Care, National LGBT Cancer Network, and Vermont Medical Society.
The Fast-Track Cities Institute and International Association of Providers of AIDS Care are based in D.C.
U.S. Federal Courts
Federal judge scraps trans-inclusive workplace discrimination protections
Ruling appears to contradict US Supreme Court precedent
Judge Matthew Kacsmaryk of the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Texas has struck down guidelines by the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission designed to protect against workplace harassment based on gender identity and sexual orientation.
The EEOC in April 2024 updated its guidelines to comply with the U.S. Supreme Court’s ruling in Bostock v. Clayton County (2020), which determined that discrimination against transgender people constituted sex-based discrimination as proscribed under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964.
To ensure compliance with the law, the agency recommended that employers honor their employees’ preferred pronouns while granting them access to bathrooms and allowing them to wear dress code-compliant clothing that aligns with their gender identities.
While the the guidelines are not legally binding, Kacsmaryk ruled that their issuance created “mandatory standards” exceeding the EEOC’s statutory authority that were “inconsistent with the text, history, and tradition of Title VII and recent Supreme Court precedent.”
“Title VII does not require employers or courts to blind themselves to the biological differences between men and women,” he wrote in the opinion.
The case, which was brought by the conservative think tank behind Project 2025, the Heritage Foundation, presents the greatest setback for LGBTQ inclusive workplace protections since President Donald Trump’s issuance of an executive order on the first day of his second term directing U.S. federal agencies to recognize only two genders as determined by birth sex.
Last month, top Democrats from both chambers of Congress reintroduced the Equality Act, which would codify LGBTQ-inclusive protections against discrimination into federal law, covering employment as well as areas like housing and jury service.
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