The distinction between gender stereotyping and sexual orientation discrimination "is illusory and artificial," Judge Dean Pregerson writes in a lawsuit against Pepperdine University. The ruling is the latest move in a larger, ongoing effort to protect LGBT people from discrimination under existing civil rights laws.

Via pepperdine.edu Pepperdine University website

WASHINGTON — The federal ban on sex discrimination in education includes a ban on sexual orientation discrimination, a federal judge in California ruled this past week. U.S. District Court Judge Dean Pregerson's ruling appears to be the first time a federal judge has made this ruling as it pertains to Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972, the federal ban on sex discrimination in education. Without much fanfare, advocates and federal officials in recent years, with support from some courts, have undertaken a significant effort to expand the reach of existing federal anti-discrimination laws — primarily Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and Title IX — to cover lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender people from discrimination. The California case was brought by two women who allege that Pepperdine University "discriminated against and harassed them" because of their perceived sexual orientation. Discussing "the line between discrimination based on gender stereotyping and discrimination based on sexual orientation," Pregerson wrote, "the Court concludes that the distinction is illusory and artificial, and that sexual orientation discrimination is not a category distinct from sex or gender discrimination." Haley Videckis and Layana White, two former members of Pepperdine’s women’s basketball team, allege in the lawsuit that they faced discriminatory treatment after the team's "[coach] and others on the staff of the women’s basketball team came to the conclusion that Plaintiffs were lesbians and were in a lesbian relationship," as Pregerson wrote. The alleged actions of Adi Conlogue, an athletic academic coordinator for the team, are highlighted in the complaint, as detailed by Pregerson in his ruling.

The decision allows Videckis and White's lawsuit to proceed. Explaining his reasoning, Pregerson wrote that "claims of discrimination based on sexual orientation are covered by Title VII and IX" — "not as a category of independent claims separate from sex and gender stereotype," but instead because "claims of sexual orientation discrimination are gender stereotype or sex discrimination claims."



A series of agency rulings, administration moves, and court fights in recent years have sought to expand the definition of "sex" in those laws to include gender identity, aimed at anti-transgender discrimination. More recently, the moves have also sought to expand that definition of "sex" to include sexual orientation, aimed at anti-LGB discrimination.

Over the course of the past four years, the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) has led on these issues. In several rulings, beginning in early 2012, the agency has established its view that the sex discrimination ban in Title VII covers anti-transgender discrimination and other discrimination based on gender identity. Once that was established, at least within the EEOC, the agency ruled — in July of this year — that the same ban also covers anti-gay discrimination and other discrimination based on sexual orientation. Pregerson cited that decision in the ruling allowing the lawsuit against Pepperdine to proceed.