The Buzz: Progress or Poppycock: Ban on LBGT Discrimination by Federal Contractors

This week the White House announced that President Obama would sign an executive order banning discrimination by federal contractors on the basis of sexual orientation and gender identity. With the stalling of ENDA (Employment Non-Discrimination Action), the more comprehensive legislation that would ban discrimination against the LGBT community more broadly, some think that the executive order is too little too late and will have very little impact.

The executive order was drafted in 2012 but was not signed because the White House was hopeful that ENDA would pass, negating the need for the executive order. Under pressure to do something, the White House announced that the President would sign the executive order.

Gay rights activists point out that most major federal contractors already have their own policies to protect LGB employees from being discriminated against and although to a lesser extent, also have policies around gender identity.

According to an account in the Washington Post, approximately 90 percent of Fortune 500 companies prohibit discrimination based on sexual orientation and about 60 percent ban it based on gender identity. More specifically as it pertains to the executive order, among fortune 1000 federal contractors, 92 percent have sexual orientation nondiscrimination policies, and 58 percent have gender identity nondiscrimination policy.

I think the impact can be significant for several reasons.

1. It puts the spotlight on LBGT issues and hopefully will ignite more discussion about the status of ENDA.
2. While the majority of major businesses both federal and non-federal contractors have non-discrimination polices covering LGB, about 40 percent have no specific polices protecting gender identity. With this executive order, federal contractors would have to put such policies in place and it may spur non-federal contractors to do the same.
3. Last week, I wrote about tackling the “T” in LGBT. This executive order will hopefully help to expose the unique issues for this group.

While this executive order may not help large numbers of people, I think it helps the overall movement to eliminate discrimination wherever it exists!