Human Resource Blog

Sexual Orientation Discrimination Coverage Under Title VII

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We are wondering whether or not sexual orientation discrimination falls under Title VII and what we can to do help ensure that our workplace does not have instances of sexual orientation discrimination.

Sexual orientation discrimination does not fall under Title VII, though there has been serious talk about whether or not it should or whether or not it does in part. Title VII is a federal document that is in place in order to ensure that employers do not discriminate against individuals based on their race, religion, color, national origin, age, or sex. Title VII applies to companies in states across the country as well and is in effect for those individuals that are current employees, potential future employees and even past employees.

There was a case that was taken to the Supreme Court in 1998 with regards to sexual orientation discrimination and its potential place in Title VII. The name of the case was Oncale v. Sundowner Offshore Services. This particular case is important because it ruled that Title VII applied to same-sex sexual harassment and started to raise questions about whether or not it would also extend to sexual orientation. However, the outcome of the ruling was that most courts would agree that sexual orientation discrimination is not the same as sexual harassment because sexual orientation discrimination tends to have a different basis.

As such, while Title VII does not cover sexual orientation discrimination, there are many states across the country that have enacted their own laws to prohibit sexual orientation discrimination.

If you are interested in taking appropriate steps to help prevent sexual orientation discrimination in your workplace, you should start by updating your policy to prohibit jokes and slurs about sexual orientation. An anti-harassment policy may go a long way. You should also train your leadership team, such as your managers and supervisors, to learn how to manage diversity in the workplace.

As part of that diversity management effort, a very basic first step might be to change some common phrasing; you could try to help your employees to avoid using exclusive language such as wife, husband, boyfriend, or girlfriend. Instead, they can use words such as spouse, partner or significant other. CB