Press Release

(Washington, DC, June 18, 2020) – In a 5-4 ruling, the U.S. Supreme Court today blocked the Trump administration’s effort to rescind the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program, an Obama administration program that protects some 700,000 immigrants brought to the United States as children from deportation. 

Lambda Legal CEO Kevin Jennings issued the following statement:

(Maryland, June 17, 2020) — A federal court in Maryland today ordered the U.S. Department of State to recognize the U.S. citizenship and issue a U.S. passport to 1-year old Kessem Kiviti, a baby born abroad to a same-sex married couple who was refused recognition as a U.S. citizen from the moment of her birth by the Trump Administration despite federal law giving her that right.

Today, the U.S. Supreme Court, in a 6-3 decision, ruled that Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, the federal law that prohibits discrimination on the basis sex, also protects employees from discrimination on the basis of their sexual orientation or gender identity. Today’s decisions confirm workplace anti-discrimination protections for LGBTQ people across the country. Lambda Legal celebrates these rulings.

Today, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) published a rule change that attempts to roll back anti-discrimination protections in health care, including for LGBTQ people under Section 1557 of the Affordable Care Act, which prohibits discrimination on the basis of sex. The rule does not and cannot change the law, but does cause confusion and invites health care workers, doctors, hospitals and health insurance companies that receive federal funding to refuse to provide or cover health care services critical to the health and wellbeing of LGBT people and everyone living with HIV, even during the global COVID-19 pandemic.

In response to the Senate Judiciary Committee’s party-line vote to advance the nomination of Judge Cory Wilson to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit,, Sharon McGowan, Legal Director and Chief Strategy Officer at Lambda Legal, released the following statement.

(Denver, CO, June 10, 2020) – Niamh Anderson took all the necessary steps in preparation for their gender confirming procedure last July, including securing prior insurance authorization for a surgery doctors had said was medically necessary to treat their gender dysphoria. So Anderson, a paramedic then-employed with of the Town of Limon, was stunned to learn that the town’s health insurance plan administrator denied several claims for the procedure because of a blanket exclusion that effectively precludes any gender affirming healthcare.

Lambda Legal late yesterday submitted written testimony to the newly formed Presidential Commission on Law Enforcement and the Administration of Justice highlighting the disproportionate levels of violence and abuse that LGBTQ people, especially LGBTQ people of color, experience in the U.S. criminal legal system.

A federal court in Maryland heard arguments today in a case brought by Lambda Legal and Immigration Equality and pro bono counsel Morgan Lewis on behalf of a married gay couple and their daughter Kessem Kiviti, whom the Trump Administration continues to refuse to recognize as a U.S. citizen since birth, even though both of her parents are U.S. citizens.

(WASHINGTON, DC – June 4) In response to the Senate Judiciary Committee’s party-line vote to advance the nomination of U.S. District Judge Justin Walker (W.D. Ky.) for a lifetime appointment to the United States Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit. Sharon McGowan, Legal Director and Chief Strategy Officer at Lambda Legal released the following statement:

(New York June 1, 2020) – Deeply disturbed by remarks made by President Trump tonight in which he threatened to deploy "thousands and thousands of heavily armed soldiers, military personnel and law enforcement officers" in response to protests arising from the killing of George Floyd in Minneapolis last week, Lambda Legal CEO Kevin Jennings issued the following statement.