Employment Discrimination Against LGBT Workers
The Williams Institute has undertaken a significant body of research regarding the experiences of LGBT employees in the workplace. This research consistently shows that LGBT people continue to face high rates of discrimination in the workplace and that state and federal protections could consequently have a significant and positive impact for LGBT workers without overly burdening employers.
Significant findings include:
• For over seventy years, Presidents have issued executive orders requiring workplace protections from discrimination, including employees of federal contractors. These orders have not been overturned by courts, Congress, or subsequent Presidents
• A federal executive order that requires contractors to prohibit discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity would protect up to 16.5 million more workers.
• Over ninety percent of the country’s largest companies, including federal contractors, state that diversity policies are good for their corporate bottom line.
• Among the top 50 federal contractors, 81% include sexual orientation in their non-discrimination policies and 44% include gender identity.
• Among the largest private defense contractors, state laws or private policies already cover 95% of employees against sexual orientation discrimination, 69% of employees against gender identity discrimination.
• Ordinances that require city and county contractors to prohibit sexual orientation and gender identity discrimination do not burdening governments or businesses.
• As recently as 2008, the GSS, a national probability survey representative of the U.S. population, found that 27% LGB respondents had experienced at least one form of sexual orientation-based discrimination during the five years prior to the survey
• When surveyed separately, transgender respondents report even higher rates of employment discrimination and harassment than LGB people. In a 2011 survey, 78% of respondents to the largest survey of transgender people to date reported experiencing at least one form of harassment or mistreatment at work because of their gender identity.
Sample studies include:
Documented Evidence of Employment Discrimination & Its Effects on LGBT People
Economic Motives for Adopting LGBT-Related Workplace Policies
In addition, the following editorials discuss Williams Institute research as it relates to the executive order prohibiting discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation and gender identity for federal contractors:
A fairer workplace in federal contracting
Washington Post
April 18, 2012
What Obama Should Do About Workplace Discrimination
New York Times
February 6, 2012
An order that would ensure a level field for gays in federal contracting
Washington Post
February 6, 2012
Why Are Taxpayers Subsidizing Anti-Gay Discrimination?
Huffington Post
February 6, 2012
Equality is good for business – and government
Detroit Free Press
February 28, 2012
Three Strikes: The Economic Vulnerability of Black Lesbians
The Black Institute
March 20, 2012