Federal court sides with transgender ex-employee against Liberty University (Religion Clause)

A federal district court has declined to dismiss a discrimination suit brought by a former Liberty University employee who was fired after he began to identify as a woman.

Section 702 of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 exempts “a religious corporation, association, educational institution, or society with respect to the employment of individuals of a particular religion to perform work connected with the carrying on by such corporation, association, educational institution, or society of its activities.”

Judge Norman Moon, a Clinton appointee, ruled that the exception in the Civil Rights Act “must be narrowly construed so as to permit discrimination only on the basis of an employee’s espoused religious belief or practice, such that religious employers have no license to discriminate on the basis of any other protected class.”