Businesses seek case on gay rights on job

Some of America’s most wellknown companies are urging the Supreme Court to rule that a federal employment discrimination law prohibits discrimination based on a person’s sexual orientation, a position opposite of the one taken by the Trump administration.

The 76 businesses and organizations — including American Airlines, Apple, eBay, Facebook, Google, Starbucks and Microsoft — filed a brief Wednesday encouraging the high court to take up the issue. They want the court to take a case out of Georgia in which a gay woman who worked as a hospital security officer says she was harassed and punished for dressing in a male uniform and wearing her hair short.

The question in her case is whether a federal law barring workplace discrimination “because of ... sex” covers discrimination against someone because of their sexual orientation.

The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission under President Barack Obama took the view that it does. But President Donald Trump’s administration has argued that Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 bars discrimination based on gender but doesn’t cover sexual orientation.