In a monumental change in Catholic church law, Pope Francis has approved revisions to the penalties for sexual abuse of minors and pornography. The church’s penal system had been in place since the 1980s. With the recent rewrite, the laws will provide for stricter and clearer penalties for...

In a legal memo distributed on June 16, 2021 by the U.S. Department of Education, schools may not discriminate against students due to their sexual orientation or gender identity. Schools that violate this inclusive interpretation of Title IX may cause harm, the notice indicated. However, in...

In a recent decision, the United States District Court for the Middle District of Georgia held that Plaintiff’s claims for wrongful death and disability discrimination under the Rehabilitation Act can proceed. This follows a motion to dismiss by defendant CoreCivic, Inc., who operates the...

Research out of Cornell University indicates “shockingly disproportionate harms” imposed upon LGBTQ people of color. The research, released by several LGBTQ rights organizations, shows that discrimination takes place among black LGBTQ individuals at a disproportionate rate compared to white...

In a recent sexual abuse lawsuit, two young girls who are legally blind allege that they were abused by a vision specialist. The complaint names Livonia and Garden City, both Michigan public school systems, as defendants, as well as school principals, superintendents, and the vision...

Following the death of Roxsana Hernandez, a Honduran transgender immigrant living with HIV, law firm Grant & Eisenhofer, Transgender Law Center, and the Law Office of Daniel Yohalem filed a complaint on behalf of Ms. Hernandez’s family. The trio of civil rights advocates aims to hold the...

A Colorado high school basketball coach won a $2.5 million judgment after a jury determined he was the victim of wrongful termination in 2017. The employee claimed he faced racial discrimination when he was terminated from Sand Creek High School where he served as Assistant Coach to the boys’...

Financial services firm Edward D. Jones & Co. has been ordered to pay $34 million to settle a racial discrimination class action lawsuit. The plaintiffs, a class of 800 current and former African American financial advisers, allege that the company routinely deprived them of profitable...

In a wrongful termination case filed in the Eastern District of Pennsylvania, a transgender nursing assistant alleges that she was fired from her job at Genesis HealthCare due to her gender identity. The plaintiff alleges harassment beginning in February 2020 when a nursing director...

In another sexual abuse lawsuit brought against a Catholic diocese in Connecticut, the plaintiff alleges he was raped by a former priest at his sister’s wedding in 1992 when he was nine years old. The lawsuit claims the church knew that the defendant, now-deceased Kiernan Ahern of the Diocese...

A $2.6 million settlement was reached on behalf of 5,500 employees and former job applicants at Google resolving job pay discrimination claims. Plaintiffs alleged that from 2014 and 2017, the search engine giant discriminated against female employees and employees of Asian descent in the...

A $73 million medical sexual abuse settlement reached on behalf of University of California, Los Angeles students has been preliminarily approved by Central District of California District Judge R. Gary Klausner. The settlement resolves allegations that Dr. James Heaps, a former UCLA...