Latest news with #Kacsmaryk
Vox
11 hours ago
- Entertainment
- Vox
A federal court took 2 years to figure out that gay people have First Amendment rights
is a senior correspondent at Vox, where he focuses on the Supreme Court, the Constitution, and the decline of liberal democracy in the United States. He received a JD from Duke University and is the author of two books on the Supreme Court. Drag queens engage in a performance that is obviously protected by the First Amendment. Photo byfor Tryst Hospitality Spectrum WT v. Wendler is one of the easiest First Amendment cases the federal courts heard this year — or in any other year. The question is whether a government official can ban drag shows. The obvious answer to this question is no. The government cannot ban drag for the same reason it cannot ban stand-up comedy, musical theatre, kabuki, noh, opera, koothu, or mime. If you really need an explainer on why the First Amendment doesn't permit the government to ban an entire theatrical style, I wrote that piece here. SCOTUS, Explained Get the latest developments on the US Supreme Court from senior correspondent Ian Millhiser. Email (required) Sign Up By submitting your email, you agree to our Terms and Privacy Notice . This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply. As the Supreme Court said in Southeastern Promotions v. Conrad (1975), a strikingly similar case about a municipal government's attempt to bar performance of the musical 'Hair,' 'only if we were to conclude that live drama is unprotected by the First Amendment — or subject to a totally different standard from that applied to other forms of expression — could we possibly find no [constitutional violation] here.' The good news for proponents of free speech is that, on Monday, the United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit handed down its decision in Spectrum WT, and that decision reached the correct conclusion that no, the government may not ban drag shows. But for the drag performers at the heart of the Spectrum WT case, this victory must taste like ash. Though the courts eventually got around to ruling that the First Amendment protects gay people, it took them more than two years to do so. The government succeeded in barring a performance that is protected by the First Amendment for more than half of an entire presidential term. Most of the reason why can be summarized in two words: 'Matthew Kacsmaryk.' Spectrum WT arises out of the president of a public university near Amarillo, Texas's attempt to ban drag shows at that school. And the only federal trial judge in Amarillo is Kacsmaryk, a notorious social conservative and prude who is best known for his failed attempt to ban the abortion drug mifepristone. There are other villains in this story as well. Though the Fifth Circuit eventually got around to saying that gay people have free speech rights, too, it rejected multiple requests to expedite the case or to temporarily block Kacsmaryk's decision allowing the drag ban while this litigation was ongoing. The Supreme Court also refused to intervene in a May 2024 decision. Related The edgelord of the federal judiciary And it's not even clear that this saga is over. Judge James Ho, a professional troll that President Donald Trump appointed to the Fifth Circuit in 2018, dissented from the decision in Spectrum WT. The university president who lost this case may appeal to the full Fifth Circuit, which has a MAGA majority. He may also ask the Supreme Court, which is frequently hostile toward LGBTQ+ people, to hear this case. It remains to be seen, in other words, whether the courts will eventually conclude that gay people have the right to free speech — and, if they do, how long it will take for them to reach that conclusion. Courts can weaponize their own calendars to benefit favored litigants and delay justice for disfavored ones Because any lawsuit filed in Amarillo will wind up before Kacsmaryk, right-wing litigants will often file their suits in that Texas city to ensure that their case is heard by a sympathetic judge. In August 2021, for example, Texas' Republican attorney general obtained an order from Kacsmaryk requiring the Biden administration to reinstate a Trump border policy that required many migrants to remain in Mexico while their immigration cases were being processed by US officials. Kacsmaryk's order was clearly illegal, and the Supreme Court eventually reversed him in an opinion warning that he 'imposed a significant burden upon the Executive's ability to conduct diplomatic relations with Mexico.' But the Court sat on the case until late June 2022 — effectively making Kacsmaryk the US border czar for nearly an entire year. But that's not how the Court, which has a 6-3 Republican majority, operates when Trump's lawyers ask them to intervene. When a lower court blocked Trump's plan to fire nearly half of the Department of Education's employees, the Republican justices gave Trump the power to do so a little more than a month after he asked them to get involved. When a lower court ordered Trump to comply with the Convention Against Torture, a treaty that the United States agreed to abide by, the Republican justices waited a little less than a month before they effectively withdrew America from that treaty. Indeed, the Court gave Trump full or partial relief in 16 of the past 16 Trump-related cases that arrived on the Court's 'shadow docket,' expedited matters that the justices often decide very quickly and without full briefing or an oral argument. Even when courts ultimately reach the correct legal conclusion, in other words, they can often reward litigants that they favor — and sabotage litigants that they don't — by manipulating when they hand down their decision. In shadow docket cases, for example, the Supreme Court is only supposed to intervene early in a case when the party seeking to block a lower court decision can show that they will be 'irreparably injured' without the Court's intervention. But the Republican justices appear to have exempted the Trump administration from this requirement, even though they applied this rule to Biden. Related Justice Kavanaugh just revealed an unfortunate truth about the Supreme Court This practice, where courts can delay suits brought by disfavored parties and expedite matters brought by others, was front and center in Spectrum WT. The case arose after West Texas A&M president Walter Wendler prohibited drag shows on campus, cancelling a planned event by a campus LGBTQ+ group in the process. Because West Texas A&M is within Kacsmaryk's jurisdiction, the student group had no chance of winning at the trial level. Kacsmaryk is a longtime anti-LGBTQ+ activist who has claimed that being transgender is a 'mental disorder' and that gay people are 'disordered.' As Democratic Sen. Chuck Schumer said during Kacsmaryk's confirmation fight, 'Mr. Kacsmaryk has demonstrated a hostility to the LGBTQ bordering on paranoia.' The courts' decision to sit on this case for so long is particularly jarring, because this case involves a public university student group. As the Fifth Circuit acknowledged in its Monday decision, the Supreme Court has long held that 'the loss of First Amendment freedoms, for even minimal periods of time, unquestionably constitutes irreparable injury,' so any case denying First Amendment rights to a litigant is a strong candidate for an expedited decision restoring those rights. But the argument for expedited relief is particularly strong when student groups are denied First Amendment rights, because many of those students may graduate before the courts restore those rights. In the more than two years since Wendler unconstitutionally banned drag shows on campus, about half of the undergraduates at his school have finished their degrees. That means that they were permanently denied their right to organize a drag show, or to perform in drag on campus, during their junior and senior years. The Fifth Circuit might have reversed Kacsmaryk's decision, but it cannot turn back time to give these graduates an experience that they may have cherished. Wendler and Kacsmaryk, in other words, irreparably injured these students. And one of the central questions when a party asks an appellate court to swiftly block a lower court decision is supposed to be whether that party will be irreparably injured. But both the Fifth Circuit and the Supreme Court sat on their hands, nonetheless. The legal arguments supporting drag bans are risible If you don't get the fact that the First Amendment prohibits government officials, including public university presidents, from banning an entire style of dramatic performance, then 'judge' is not the right job for you. Nevertheless, Judge Ho did dissent in the Spectrum WT. His argument is…unusual. The crux of Ho's argument is that courts should defer to Wendler's conclusion that drag shows are inherently sexist. In a letter justifying his decision to ban drag, Wendler claimed that drag denigrates women in the same way that blackface performances denigrate African Americans. 'As a university president, I would not support 'blackface' performances on our campus,' Wendler wrote. 'I do not support any show, performance or artistic expression which denigrates others—in this case, women—for any reason.' There are so many problems with this argument that it is hard to know where to begin. Drag shows and blackface are superficially similar in that one involves people who are not Black masquerading as Black people, and the other typically involves people who are not women dressing as if they were. But the similarities end there. Blackface exists to degrade Black people. Drag shows exist to lampoon gender roles, not to convey that women are inferior to men. But none of that matters for a very simple reason: Blackface is protected by the Constitution, as is all kinds of offensive speech. In Snyder v. Phelps (2011), for example, the Supreme Court held that members of an anti-gay church have a First Amendment right to protest military funerals with signs displaying anti-gay slurs and messages like 'Thank God for Dead Soldiers.' Racial slurs, racist or sexist performances, and all kinds of other despicable speech are all protected by the First Amendment. Thus, even if Wendler were correct that drag is akin to blackface, it wouldn't matter. The First Amendment protects blackface. That said, the Supreme Court has held that public schools may sanction speech that 'materially disrupts classwork or involves substantial disorder or invasion of the rights of others.' This is why public school teachers may put a student who interrupts their lessons in detention. So, a public university president might be able to bar a blackface performance if they can show that it would so offend the student body that it would disrupt the school's ability to educate. But there's no evidence that West Texas A&M classrooms would be disrupted because of a drag show. Ho attempts to get around all of this law by pointing to the Supreme Court's decision in Christian Legal Society v. Martinez (2010), which held that public universities may require campus groups to adopt an 'all-comers' policy — meaning that they must allow any student who wants to join the group to join — if those groups want to receive certain benefits and subsidies from the university. The plaintiff in Christian Legal Society, a campus group that wished to bar students who engage in 'unrepentant homosexual conduct,' claimed that this policy violated their First Amendment right to free association. Ho appears to argue that, because the anti-gay group in Christian Legal Society could not rely on the First Amendment to overcome the all-comers policy, it follows that the student group at issue in Spectrum WT also cannot invoke its First Amendment rights. But it is well-established that anti-discrimination laws can overcome the right to free association. If they couldn't, then all such laws would be unconstitutional. A law barring race discrimination in hiring, for example, forces white supremacist employers to associate with non-white workers. Christian Legal Society would apply to the student group in Spectrum WT if it tried to bar straight students from joining (assuming, of course, that West Texas A&M has an all-comers policy), and it might apply if they attempted to exclude some students from attending the drag performance. But it has nothing to say about whether a public university president may ban certain performances on campus. Ho's opinion, in other words, is quite wrong. But it should stand as a warning to anyone who hopes to invoke their constitutional rights in the future. Ho is widely viewed as a leading candidate for promotion to the Supreme Court in Trump's second term. And the more time Trump spends in office, the more judges like Kacsmaryk and Ho he can appoint to the bench.
The Hill
19-06-2025
- Health
- The Hill
Texas district judge overturns Biden rule on expanded abortion privacy protections
A Texas federal judge late Wednesday overturned a Biden administration rule designed to keep prosecutors from getting the medical records of patients seeking legal abortions or gender-affirming care by boosting privacy protections for women's reproductive health information. District Judge Matthew Kacsmaryk in Amarillo ruled the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) acted unlawfully when it expanded the scope of the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) privacy law last April. Kacsmaryk wrote that the Biden administration 'invoked HIPAA as a shield against abortion-restrictive states.' He said the rule was written to protect 'politically preferred procedures' like abortion and gender transitions but that HIPAA doesn't give HHS the ability to 'distinguish between types of health information to accomplish political ends.' 'Thus, HHS lacks the authority to issue regulations that enact heightened protections for information about politically favored procedures,' he wrote. Such action should only be taken by Congress, he wrote, especially because the issues are of major political significance. 'The 2024 rule creates special rules for information about these politically favored procedures that implicate fundamental and hotly debated questions,' he wrote. The rule prohibits health care providers and insurers from giving information about a legal abortion to state law enforcement authorities who are seeking to punish someone in connection with that abortion. The 2024 rule came in the wake of concerns that patients who travel to clinics for legal abortion or reproductive care will eventually have their records sought following the Supreme Court's overturning of Roe v. Wade. Late last year, Kacsmaryk temporarily blocked HHS from enforcing the rule against the Texas doctor who had brought the lawsuit. Carmen Purl, a Texas physician, sued to declare the rule 'arbitrary and capricious' and 'in excess of statutory authority,' in violation of the Administrative Procedure Act. Wednesday's decision blocks the rule nationwide. Kacsmaryk, who was appointed by President Trump in his first term, has become a go-to judge for blocking Biden-era rules nationwide. Texas has filed a separate lawsuit challenging the rule, which is pending in federal court in Lubbock. HHS in a court filing last month said the Trump administration is evaluating its position in this case.
Straits Times
19-06-2025
- Health
- Straits Times
US judge invalidates Biden rule protecting privacy for abortions
The rule prohibits healthcare providers and insurers from giving information about a legal abortion. PHOTO: AFP TEXAS - A federal judge on June 18 struck down a rule adopted by the administration of former President Joe Biden that strengthened privacy protections for women seeking abortions and patients who receive gender transition treatments. US District Judge Matthew Kacsmaryk in Amarillo, Texas, said the US Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) exceeded its powers and unlawfully limited states' ability to enforce their public health laws when it adopted the rule in 2024. The rule prohibits healthcare providers and insurers from giving information about a legal abortion to state law enforcement authorities who are seeking to punish someone in connection with that abortion. 'HHS lacked clear delegated authority to fashion special protections for medical information produced by politically favored medical procedures,' wrote Mr Kacsmaryk, who was appointed by President Donald Trump, a Republican, during his first term. Mr Kacsmaryk in December 2024 had blocked HHS from enforcing the rule against a Texas doctor who had brought the lawsuit, Ms Carmen Purl, pending the outcome of the case. June 18's decision blocks the rule nationwide. HHS did not immediately respond to a request for comment. Ms Purl is represented by Alliance Defending Freedom, a conservative Christian legal group. Mr Matt Bowman, senior counsel with the group, praised the decision in a statement, saying the 2024 rule 'would have weaponised laws about privacy that have nothing to do with abortion or gender identity'. The Biden administration issued the rule as part of its pledge to support access to reproductive healthcare after the conservative-majority US Supreme Court in 2022 overturned the 1973 Roe v. Wade ruling that made access to abortion a constitutional right nationwide. It came in response to efforts by authorities in some Republican-led states that ban abortion, including Texas, to restrict out-of-state travel for abortion. Texas has filed a separate lawsuit challenging the rule, which is pending in federal court in Lubbock, Texas. HHS in a court filing last month said agency leadership appointed by Mr Trump is evaluating its position in this case. Mr Biden, a Democrat, said in announcing the rule that no one should have their medical records 'used against them, their doctor, or their loved one just because they sought or received lawful reproductive health care'. REUTERS Join ST's Telegram channel and get the latest breaking news delivered to you.
Chicago Tribune
16-05-2025
- Politics
- Chicago Tribune
Federal judge strikes down workplace protections for transgender workers
A federal judge in Texas struck down guidance from a government agency establishing protections against workplace harassment based on gender identity and sexual orientation. Judge Matthew J. Kacsmaryk of the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Texas on Thursday determined that the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission exceeded its statutory authority when the agency issued guidance to employers against deliberately using the wrong pronouns for an employee, refusing them access to bathrooms corresponding with their gender identity, and barring employees from wearing dress code-compliant clothing according to their gender identity because they may constitute forms of workplace harassment. Title VII of the 1964 Civil Rights Act protects employees and job applicants from employment discrimination based on race, color, religion, sex and national origin. The EEOC, which enforces workplace anti-discrimination laws, had updated its guidance on workplace harassment in April of last year under President Joe Biden for the first time in 25 years. It followed a 2020 Supreme Court ruling that gay, lesbian and transgender people are protected from employment discrimination. Texas and the Heritage Foundation, the conservative think tank behind Project 2025, in August challenged the guidance, which the agency says serves as a tool for employers to assess compliance with anti-discrimination laws and is not legally binding. Kacsmaryk disagreed, writing that the guidance creates 'mandatory standards … from which legal consequences will necessarily flow if an employer fails to comply.' The decision marks the latest blow to workplace protections for transgender workers following President Donald Trump's Jan. 20 executive order declaring that the government would recognize only two 'immutable' sexes — male and female. Kacsmaryk, a 2017 Trump nominee, invalidated all portions of the EEOC guidance that defines 'sex' to include 'sexual orientation' and 'gender identity,' along with an entire section addressing the subject. 'Title VII does not require employers or courts to blind themselves to the biological differences between men and women,' he wrote in the opinion. Heritage Foundation president Kevin Roberts commended the decision in an emailed statement: 'The Biden EEOC tried to compel businesses — and the American people — to deny basic biological truth. Today, thanks to the great state of Texas and the work of my Heritage colleagues, a federal judge said: not so fast.' He added: 'This ruling is more than a legal victory. It's a cultural one. It says no — you don't have to surrender common sense at the altar of leftist ideology. You don't have to pretend men are women.' Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton also touted the victory against 'Biden's 'Pronoun Police' Rule' in a Friday press release, saying: 'The federal government has no right to force Texans to play along with delusions or ignore biological reality in our workplaces.' The National Women's Law Center, which filed an amicus brief in November in support of the harassment guidance, blasted the decision in an emailed statement. 'The district court's decision is an outrage and blatantly at odds with Supreme Court precedent,' said Liz Theran, senior director of litigation for education and workplace justice at NWLC. 'The EEOC's Harassment Guidance reminds employers and workers alike to do one simple thing that should cost no one anything: refrain from degrading others on the job based on their identity and who they love. This decision does not change the law, but it will make it harder for LGBTQIA+ workers to enforce their rights and experience a workplace free from harassment.' Kacsmaryk offered a more narrow interpretation of Bostock v. Clayton County, the landmark Supreme Court case that established discrimination protections for LGBTQ+ workers, saying in his decision that the Supreme Court 'firmly refused to expand the definition of 'sex' beyond the biological binary,' and found only that employers could not fire workers for being gay or transgender. Employment attorney Jonathan Segal, a partner at Duane Morris who advises companies on how best to comply with anti-discrimination laws, emphasized that legal minds may disagree on the scope of Bostock, and Kacsmaryk's decision is just one interpretation. 'If you assume that a transgender employee has no rights beyond not being fired for transgender status, you are likely construing their rights too narrowly under both federal and state law,' which would put employers in a risky position, Segal said. And regardless of whether explicit guidance is in place, employers still need to address gender identity conflicts in the workplace, according to Tiffany Stacy, an Ogletree Deakins attorney in San Antonio who defends employers against claims of workplace discrimination. 'From a management perspective, employers should be prepared to diffuse those situations,' Stacy said. The EEOC in fiscal year 2024 received more than 3,000 charges alleging discrimination based on sexual orientation or gender identity, and 3,000-plus in 2023, according to the agency's website. The U.S. Department of Justice and the EEOC declined to comment on the outcome of the Texas case. EEOC Acting Chair Andrea Lucas, a Trump appointee, voted against the harassment guidelines last year but has been unable to rescind or revise them after Trump fired two of the three Democratic commissioners, leaving the federal agency without the quorum needed to make major policy changes. But earlier this month, Trump tapped an assistant U.S. attorney in Florida, Brittany Panuccio, to fill one of the vacancies. If Panuccio is confirmed by the Senate, the EEOC would regain a quorum and establish a Republican majority 2-1, clearing the path to fully pivot the agency toward focusing on Trump's priorities. 'It is neither harassment nor discrimination for a business to draw distinctions between the sexes in providing single-sex bathrooms,' Lucas wrote in a statement expressing her dissent to that aspect of the guidelines. In her four-month tenure as Acting Chair, Lucas has overhauled the agency's interpretation of civil rights law, including abandoning seven of its own cases representing transgender workers alleging they have experienced discrimination, and instructing employees to sideline all new gender identity discrimination cases received by the agency.
New York Post
16-05-2025
- Politics
- New York Post
Federal judge strikes down workplace protections for transgender workers
A federal judge in Texas struck down guidance from a government agency establishing protections against workplace harassment based on gender identity and sexual orientation. Judge Matthew J. Kacsmaryk of the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Texas on Thursday determined that the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission exceeded its statutory authority when the agency issued guidance to employers against deliberately using the wrong pronouns for an employee, refusing them access to bathrooms corresponding with their gender identity, and barring employees from wearing dress code-compliant clothing according to their gender identity because they may constitute forms of workplace harassment. Title VII of the 1964 Civil Rights Act protects employees and job applicants from employment discrimination based on race, color, religion, sex and national origin. Advertisement Judge Matthew J. Kacsmaryk struck down guidance from a government agency establishing protections against workplace harassment based on gender identity and sexual orientation. AP The EEOC, which enforces workplace anti-discrimination laws, had updated its guidance on workplace harassment in April of last year under President Joe Biden for the first time in 25 years. It followed a 2020 Supreme Court ruling that gay, lesbian and transgender people are protected from employment discrimination. Advertisement Texas and the Heritage Foundation, the conservative think tank behind Project 2025, in August challenged the guidance, which the agency says serves as a tool for employers to assess compliance with anti-discrimination laws and is not legally binding. Kacsmaryk disagreed, writing that the guidance creates 'mandatory standards … from which legal consequences will necessarily flow if an employer fails to comply.' The decision marks the latest blow to workplace protections for transgender workers following President Donald Trump's Jan. 20 executive order declaring that the government would recognize only two 'immutable' sexes — male and female. Kacsmaryk, a 2017 Trump nominee, invalidated all portions of the EEOC guidance that defines 'sex' to include 'sexual orientation' and 'gender identity,' along with an entire section addressing the subject. Advertisement This follows the 2020 Supreme Court ruling that gay, lesbian, and transgender people are protected from employment discrimination. Bloomberg via Getty Images 'Title VII does not require employers or courts to blind themselves to the biological differences between men and women,' he wrote in the opinion. Heritage Foundation president Kevin Roberts commended the decision in an emailed statement: 'The Biden EEOC tried to compel businesses — and the American people — to deny basic biological truth. Today, thanks to the great state of Texas and the work of my Heritage colleagues, a federal judge said: not so fast.' He added: 'This ruling is more than a legal victory. It's a cultural one. It says no — you don't have to surrender common sense at the altar of leftist ideology. You don't have to pretend men are women.' Advertisement Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton also touted the victory against 'Biden's 'Pronoun Police' Rule' in a Friday press release, saying: 'The federal government has no right to force Texans to play along with delusions or ignore biological reality in our workplaces.' The National Women's Law Center, which filed an amicus brief in November in support of the harassment guidance, blasted the decision in an emailed statement. 'The district court's decision is an outrage and blatantly at odds with Supreme Court precedent,' said Liz Theran, senior director of litigation for education and workplace justice at NWLC. 'The EEOC's Harassment Guidance reminds employers and workers alike to do one simple thing that should cost no one anything: refrain from degrading others on the job based on their identity and who they love. This decision does not change the law, but it will make it harder for LGBTQIA+ workers to enforce their rights and experience a workplace free from harassment.' Kacsmaryk offered a more narrow interpretation of Bostock v. Clayton County, the landmark Supreme Court case that established discrimination protections for LGBTQ+ workers, saying in his decision that the Supreme Court 'firmly refused to expand the definition of 'sex' beyond the biological binary,' and found only that employers could not fire workers for being gay or transgender. Employment attorney Jonathan Segal, a partner at Duane Morris who advises companies on how best to comply with anti-discrimination laws, emphasized that legal minds may disagree on the scope of Bostock, and Kacsmaryk's decision is just one interpretation. 'If you assume that a transgender employee has no rights beyond not being fired for transgender status, you are likely construing their rights too narrowly under both federal and state law,' which would put employers in a risky position, Segal said. Advertisement And regardless of whether explicit guidance is in place, employers still need to address gender identity conflicts in the workplace, according to Tiffany Stacy, an Ogletree Deakins attorney in San Antonio who defends employers against claims of workplace discrimination. 'From a management perspective, employers should be prepared to diffuse those situations,' Stacy said. The EEOC in fiscal year 2024 received more than 3,000 charges alleging discrimination based on sexual orientation or gender identity, and 3,000-plus in 2023, according to the agency's website.
