Articles Posted in Civil Rights

A federal district court judge in Massachusetts ruled that the Second Amendment does not prevent Massachusetts from banning assault rifles.

Some residents of the Mississippi town, Oceans Springs, have filed a lawsuit, attempting to ban the city from displaying the state flag, which they contend is ’racially demeaning.’

The Raleigh, North Carolina police department issued "reverse warrants" to Google for the purpose of collecting cellular location data of people near a crime scene. WRAL, a Raleigh television station and NBC affiliate, reported that the Raleigh police department issued four "reverse warrants" in 2017, seeking information not tied to a specific suspect but from any people with Google accounts, including users of Android operating systems and location-enabled Google apps, at or near the scene of a crime.

The National Fair Housing Alliance is suing Facebook for allegedly permitting its advertisers to target certain groups in violation of the Fair Housing Act.

Linda Brown, the young student who was at the center of a 1954 US Supreme Court case to desegregate public schools, passed away earlier this week. She was 76.

Google has reportedly spent approximately $270,000 to close unexplained pay gaps it identified among over 200 employees in six job groups. As part of this effort to close any "statistically significant" pay inequities, Google reviewed any job group with 30 or more employees, and at least five employees in every demographic group for which it had data. The pay increases occurred following a revised class action that was filed against the search giant earlier this year, alleging that women make less than their male counterparts at Google.

The ACLU filed a FOIA lawsuit to collect information about the policies, equipment, and training that apply to the search of electronic devices brought by passengers on domestic flights, a practice that may have begun last fall.

Plaintiffs have filed a class action lawsuit against Lyft in Alameda County, California, claiming violations of state disability laws for the ride-hailing company's alleged failure to make its services available to wheelchair users in the San Francisco Bay Area. Represented by Disability Rights Advocates (DRA), the plaintiffs claim that Lyft's current efforts to make rides accessible to wheelchair users are a "sham," and simply direct them to local paratransit and other services if they are unable to utilize a folding wheelchair.

The US Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit, sitting en banc, held that a provision of Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 that prohibits discrimination "because of ... sex" includes protection against sexual orientation discrimination. Read the whole opinion on Justia Law.

The now-notorious Harvey Weinstein faces yet another challenge as New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman has filed a lawsuit against him and his company alleging violations of New York civil rights, human rights, and business laws.