Labor & Employment Law: Vermont and Federal Legislative Update
#WorkforceWednesday: SCOTUS Decision on LGBTQ Employees, EEOC on Older Workers Returning to Work - Employment Law This Week®
Ten years have passed since the Supreme Court of the United States granted all same-sex couples the right to marry and have their marriages recognized nationwide. ...more
On June 18, 2025, the U.S. Supreme Court issued its opinion in the closely watched case of United States v. Skrmetti. In this 6-3 opinion, the Supreme Court upheld Tennessee’s legislation blocking gender-affirming care,...more
On Wednesday, June 18, 2025, the Supreme Court of the United States issued a landmark 6-3 decision in United States v. Skrmetti, directly addressing the constitutionality of state laws banning gender-affirming care for...more
In a widely awaited for decision, the Supreme Court in a 6-3 opinion authored by Justice Roberts held that a Tennessee law which prohibits certain medical treatments (puberty blockers and hormones) for transgender minors,...more
On June 18, 2025, the Supreme Court of the United States ruled that a Tennessee law banning gender-affirming care for minors does not classify on the basis of sex in ways that would require heightened scrutiny under the Equal...more
Pride Month provides an opportunity for you to recognize the resilience of the LGBTQ+ community at your workplace amid an evolving and often challenging legal and political landscape. Now more than ever, this year’s Pride...more
A federal court’s ruling last week striking down the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission’s guidelines on gender identity and sexual orientation harassment in the workplace got the attention of employers around the...more
On May 15, a Texas federal court vacated portions of the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission’s (EEOC) Enforcement Guidance on Harassment in the Workplace, concluding that the agency’s expanded interpretation of “sex”...more
On February 5, 2025, President Donald Trump signed Executive Order 14201, “Keeping Men Out of Women’s Sports,” which aims to prohibit transgender women and girls from participating in female sports across all educational...more
President Trump's orders targeting "woke gender ideology" do not change existing employment protections for LGBTQ employees, though threats to federal funding remain ambiguous. Title VII of the Civil Rights Act and many...more
Inauguration week yielded a flurry of presidential executive orders, including 26 on Monday, January 20, 2025, alone. Many of those orders seem to be creating buzz, if not serious and understandable confusion, about possible...more
Within hours of taking office for a second term, President Trump issued a flurry of executive orders and actions on topics ranging from immigration and climate change to revoking DEI mandates. While many of these actions are...more
On Monday, January 20, 2025, President Donald Trump issued an Executive Order entitled “Defending Women From Gender Ideology Extremism and Restoring Biological Truth To The Federal Government” (the “Order”). The Order...more
The bathroom battle (among others) continues. The State of Texas and the Heritage Foundation, on behalf of employers, have challenged the EEOC's recent Enforcement Guidance on Harassment in the Workplace. The lawsuit alleges...more
We are pleased to present our annual End of Year Plan Sponsor “To Do” Lists. This year, we present our “To Do” Lists in four separate SW Benefits Updates. This Part 1 covers year-end health and welfare plan issues. Parts 2,...more
Last week, the Supreme Court accepted review of Ames v. Ohio Department of Youth Services. The court will address a circuit split regarding the standard courts apply in discrimination claims brought by majority group...more
In its 2020 decision in Bostock v. Clayton County, the United States Supreme Court ruled that Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 prohibits covered employers from discriminating against employees based on their...more
On July 22, 2024, Solicitor General of the United States Elizabeth B. Prelogar submitted applications to the Supreme Court of the United States for a partial stay of two preliminary injunctions issued, respectively, by the...more
With the August 1, 2024, effective date of the Department of Education’s April Title IX regulations (Final Rule) just weeks away, court action in pending lawsuits challenging the Final Rule across the country continues. The...more
On July 2, Judge John Broomes of the U.S. District Court for the District of Kansas handed down yet another preliminary injunction blocking the Title IX regulations issued in April, following on the heels of similar orders...more
On April 29, 2024, the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) issued its new Enforcement Guidance on Harassment in the Workplace (the Guidance), the first update to its Guidance in over 20 years. Among the many...more
On June 17, Chief Judge Danny Reeves of the Eastern District of Kentucky issued a preliminary injunction staying the effective date, and enjoining enforcement, of the new Title IX regulations in the states of Indiana,...more
On April 29, 2024, the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) issued the final version of its Enforcement Guidance on Harassment in the Workplace (the “Guidance”) by a 3-2 vote. The Guidance updates prior EEOC...more
Our April 9 blog post highlighted several issues to watch during 2024, one of which was gender-affirming care considerations. Just over a month later, there have now been three key developments with respect to that issue:...more
“The rock and the hard place.” How often do employers find themselves here? If employers have LGBTQ employees in certain states, they are now bumping up against the “rock” of federal laws, like Title VII and Title IX, and the...more