(Washington, DC, June 27, 2018) – Today, Rachel B. Tiven, Chief Executive Officer of Lambda Legal, issued the following statement in response to the retirement of Anthony Kennedy, senior Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States:

"After decades of leadership on the court for LGBT rights, in the final hour of his 30-year tenure on the bench, Supreme Court Justice Anthony Kennedy heralded in a Muslim ban and left open the question of whether the far right has a license to discriminate against the LGBT community and other marginalized groups.



“We are shocked and saddened that a justice who was once the defender of dignity for LGBT people and our families on the court would choose this moment to hang up his robe and give the Trump administration the opportunity to further derail anti-discrimination laws and undermine the rule of law.



“For the last few years, Lambda Legal has been leading the fight to protect the courts from Trump’s onslaught of anti-LGBT judges. We have watched as the White House embraced every nominee approved by the Heritage Foundation in their plan to undo Obama-era protections and weaken laws that protect the rights of every American, not just the wealthy and the powerful.



“The American people deserve to have a voice in the selection of their next Supreme Court Justice. Therefore, not a single nominee by the Trump administration should get a hearing or a vote until after the November 2018 mid-term elections. Given everything happening in this country, and the fact that this President has worked to push through his own hateful agenda, the American people have a right to be heard before this critical decision.



“We cannot allow 40 more years of Trump’s values on the Supreme Court. Attempts by President Trump and Vice President Pence to use a new court vacancy as a way to deprive us of our dignity, to demean our community, or to diminish our status as equal citizens will be met with a chorus of opposition from civil rights leaders across the country. We have already seen the damage that has been done by the confirmation of Justice Gorsuch to the highest court in the land. We will not roll over and acquiesce to yet another attempt by this administration to tarnish the Supreme Court -- one of our most revered institutions -- with another nominee who shares their distorted view of the law.”