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October 13, 2017

Professor Soucek Files Brief in Supreme Court Sexual Orientation Discrimination Case

Professor Brian Soucek filed an amicus brief with the U.S. Supreme Court, arguing that it should agree to hear Evans v. Georgia Regional Hospital, a case that asks whether federal employment discrimination law protects against discrimination based on sexual orientation.

Professor Soucek wrote the brief with Professor Jessica Clarke of the University of Minnesota Law School and lawyers at Hogan Lovells on behalf of 17 anti-discrimination law scholars. They argue that sexual orientation discrimination is based on, and reinforces, the outmoded gender roles that Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 was intended to disrupt. The argument is based in part on Soucek's article "Perceived Homosexuals: Looking Gay Enough for Title VII," and his recent essay for the Yale Law Journal Forum: "Hively's Self-Induced Blindness," which in turn drew on three decades of work by the scholars who signed on to the brief.

Other scholars joining the brief are Professor I. Bennett Capers of Brooklyn Law School, Professor Michael C. Dorf of Cornell Law School, Professor William N. Eskridge, Jr. of Yale Law School, Professor Cary C. Franklin of the University of Texas School of Law, Judge Nancy Gertner (Ret.), a lecturer at Harvard Law School, Professor Andrew M. Koppelman of Northwestern University School of Law, Professor Zachary A. Kramer of Arizona State University College of Law, Professor Sylvia A. Law of New York University School of Law, Professor Catharine A. MacKinnon of the University of Michigan Law School and Harvard Law School, Professor Samuel A. Marcosson of the University of Louisville School of Law, Professor Ann C. McGinley of the University of Nevada, Las Vegas School of Law, Professor Douglas G. NeJaime of Yale Law School, Professor Betsy Rosenblatt of Whittier Law School, Professor Vicki Schultz of Yale Law School, and Professor Deborah Widiss of the Indiana University School of Law.

Professor Soucek holds a J.D. from Yale Law School and a Ph.D. from Columbia University. He has clerked for U.S. District Court Judge Mark. R. Kravitz in Connecticut, and Judge Guido Calabresi of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit. His primary teaching and research interests are antidiscrimination law, civil procedure, constitutional law, and refugee/asylum law.