The Walmart Case That Could Expand Gay Rights at Work
The company’s health benefits policy before 2014 might be a form of sex discrimination.
This article is for subscribers only.
Is anti-gay discrimination a form of sex discrimination? Walmart Stores, the biggest private employer in the U.S., is the target of a lawsuit that might soon provide an answer to that question.
Walmart didn’t extend spousal health benefits to employees in same-sex marriages until January 2014, even in states where same-sex marriage was legal. Before then, when workers such as Jackie Cote applied for coverage for their same-sex spouses, Walmart rejected their requests, as it has maintained it had the right to do. While the Supreme Court last year ruled that same-sex couples have the right to marry, the Civil Rights Act of 1964 doesn’t mention sexual orientation.