Bruce Petrie is a Senior Counselor at Bricker Graydon law firm, having served clients for over forty years in education, health care, public and private sector and constitutional law. He served on the Executive Committee of the firm ...
In Mahanoy Area School District v. Levy, the Supreme Court ruled on June 23, 2021 that a public high school violated the First Amendment when it disciplined a high school student for Snapchat posting vulgar language and gestures criticizing the school and its cheerleading team after she didn’t make the varsity squad. Key here: the student’s ...
Today the Supreme Court ruled against the Trump Administration’s attempt via the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) to end the DACA program (aka Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals or “Dreamers”). DACA allows certain unauthorized aliens who arrived in the U.S. as children to apply for work authorization and various federal ...
Until today, June 15, 2020, the question of whether federal law prohibits discrimination against gay, lesbian, and transgender employees was unsettled. In a 6-to-3 decision, the US Supreme Court settled this question, holding that under Title VII, such discrimination is illegal. Fewer than half of 50 states currently ban such ...
Employees don’t shed their viewpoints at the front door of the workplace. You knew that already! Many come to work with a variety of political, cultural, religious, economic and demographic viewpoints. Along with this increasing pluralism, America’s workforce is part of a nation that values and debates free speech.
As the national debate ...
“The American community is today, as it has long been, a rich mosaic of religious faiths.” So writes Supreme Court Justice Elena Kagan. Religious pluralism is a fact not only in our country as a whole, but in our workplaces as well. This growing pluralism also includes growing numbers of people who identify with no religion, particularly within ...
On June 27, 2018 the Supreme Court issued its most important labor law decision in the past 40 years. In those four decades, a case named Abood was the leading precedent that allowed public sector unions to charge a so-called “agency fee” to nonmembers of the union for collective bargaining activities of the union. No more.
In its 5-4 decision ...
The Supreme Court’s Masterpiece Cakeshop decision by Justice Kennedy follows the the unwritten Slender Reed Rule which goes like this: If SCOTUS has to decide a case with narrow facts that could lead to a precedent that’s either slender or rotund, go with the slender reed and save the big issues for another day. The slender reed Justice Kennedy ...