UC Law lecture examines transgender rights and the Equal Protection clause
Event Information
Katie Eyer, Professor of Law at Rutgers Law School, will discuss the intersection of transgender rights and the Equal Protection doctrine during her lecture “Transgender Equality: An Inflection Point for Equal Protection?” This event, the 2024 Constitution Day lecture, will be held at 12:15 p.m., Tuesday, September 17, 2024, in Room 160 at the College of Law (2925 Campus Green Drive). This event is free and open to the public. CLE: 1 hour of general CLE has been approved for Kentucky. Ohio is pending. Parking is available at the Campus Green Garage.
This lecture is made possible through the generous support of the Alfred B. Katz Constitution Day Fund in memory of Alfred B. Katz ’35.
About the Lecture
The case of United States v. Skrmetti (currently pending before the Supreme Court) will provide the Supreme Court with its first opportunity to address transgender rights under the Equal Protection clause. But Skrmetti may also prove to be an inflection point for Equal Protection doctrine more generally. In recent decades, the Court has moved away from the formalist tiers of scrutiny in its Equal Protection cases, including most notably those involving lesbian and gay rights. But by many accounts, that turn was driven primarily by one Justice: Justice Kennedy, who has since departed from the Court. We do not yet have clear evidence on where the current court—which has shown itself to be highly willing to depart from precedent, and to incorporate originalism into constitutional law—will go with Equal Protection doctrine. Will it adhere to the formalist tiered framework of scrutiny? To those precedents from the Kennedy era focusing to a greater extent on concepts of dignity and due process? Skrmetti will be a testing ground for all of these questions, in addition to its profound importance for transgender rights.
About the Lecturer
Professor Katie Eyer, Rutgers Law School
Professor Katie Eyer is an anti-discrimination law scholar, teacher, and litigator. She is a leading expert on LGBTQ employment rights and on social movements and constitutional change. Her 2019 article, “Statutory Originalism and LGBT Rights”, has been credited with originating the textualist argument that the Supreme Court adopted in the landmark case of Bostock v. Clayton County, 590 U.S. 64 (2020) (holding that anti-LGBT discrimination is discrimination "because of...sex" under Title VII).
Professor Eyer is a member of the American Law Institute and has been recognized at the national, university, and local level for her scholarship, teaching, service, and work as a litigator. Her work has been published in numerous top law journals, including the Yale Law Journal, University of Pennsylvania Law Review, Virginia Law Review, and Harvard Civil Rights-Civil Liberties Law Review, among others.
Prior to coming to Rutgers, Professor Eyer was a lawyer doing cutting-edge work in the area of LGBTQ employment rights. In 2005, she founded the Employment Rights Project at Equality Advocates Pennsylvania, one of the first projects in the country to focus on the employment rights of LGBTQ workers. She later joined the law firm of Salmanson Goldshaw, PC, where she continued to represent LGBTQ clients, as well as litigate race, sex, disability, and other discrimination and ERISA claims. Professor Eyer's work resulted in several precedent-setting decisions expanding the rights of LGBTQ and disabled employees, including one of the first appellate decisions in the country allowing a gay plaintiff's Title VII claims to go to trial.
Professor Eyer clerked for the Honorable Guido Calabresi and was a Research Scholar and Lecturer in Law at the University of Pennsylvania. Most recently, she was a Visiting Professor of Law at University of Chicago Law School. Professor Eyer is a graduate of Columbia University and received her JD from Yale Law School.
Lead photo: istockphoto.com; Prof. Eyer: provided
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