Well, maybe not light reading, but good reading about good news that you won't want to miss! Here are our bulletins and other publications from the last week, in case you missed them:

*Heather Owen is already shooting off Fourth of July fireworks at the FOCUS women's leadership blog because our firm was named this week by the National Law Journal as the fourth best law firm in the ...

I was on vacation last week, and so we have a lot of catching up to do. Here's what's been going on, from most to least recent:

*David Phippen has been keeping us up to date on the U.S. Department of Labor's Persuader Rule and what that will mean for employers. On Wednesday, a federal judge in Minnesota refused to preliminarily block enforcement of the rule. There are two other challenges ...

All these HB 2 lawsuits are making me dizzy.

Here is a copy of the U.S. Department of Justice lawsuit filed yesterday afternoon against the State of North Carolina. The McCrory (North Carolina) v. USA lawsuit is pending in federal court in the Eastern District of North Carolina (Raleigh). The DOJ lawsuit is pending in federal court in the Middle District of North Carolina ...

Law360 reported this morning that the State of North Carolina has filed suit against the U.S. Department of Justice in federal court in Raleigh. The suit seeks a declaratory judgment (official ruling from the court) that, by enforcing HB 2's provisions regarding "bathroom use and changing facility use by state employees," the state is not in violation of Title VII of the Civil ...

The U.S. Department of Justice sent a letter yesterday to Gov. Pat McCrory, giving him until Monday, May 9, to "confirm" that he does not plan to enforce the "bathroom" provisions of HB 2 as they apply to public agencies. If he fails to confirm, the DOJ is putting him on notice that he and the State of North Carolina are engaged in a "pattern or practice" of discrimination against ...

The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission has published a new Fact Sheet on LGBT discrimination that employers will find helpful. As I've reported before here and here, the agency is taking an aggressive position regarding coverage of LGBT issues under Title VII's sex discrimination provisions. The EEOC's fact sheet, as well as other materials linked in it, should answer most ...

Of significance to employers, the bill, which was signed into law last Wednesday, eliminates the common-law cause of action for wrongful discharge based on "EEO" discrimination. I talked about that here.

Here is a copy of the lawsuit, filed today in federal court in Greensboro, North Carolina. The plaintiffs are three individuals (two transgender men and a lesbian), the American ...

Big news for employees and employers in North Carolina -- the General Assembly enacted a bill on Wednesday (signed by Gov. Pat McCrory (R) within hours) that was primarily intended to preempt a certain high-profile municipal "bathroom" ordinance. (More on that in a sec.) But included in the bill is a provision that eliminates the wrongful discharge/public policy cause of ...

The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission filed today two lawsuits contending that employers' alleged discrimination and harassment based on sexual orientation violates the Title VII ban on sex discrimination. One suit was filed on behalf of a gay call center employee in Pennsylvania, and the other was filed on behalf of a lesbian forklift operator in Maryland.

Here is the ...

Last year, Tommy Eden had a post about a gender identity lawsuit in which an employer in Georgia actually won summary judgment. A reader alerted me last night that a panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit reversed the decision in part yesterday, finding that the Plaintiff's mixed-motive claim should go to a jury. According to the appeals court decision, there ...