Public employees harassed due to sexual orientation have equal protection claim.

Sexual orientation discrimination in the public workplace is actionable as an equal protection violation, a federal judge in New York has ruled. (Quinn v. Nassau County Police Department, No. 97 CV3310 (ADS), 1999 WL 459863 (E.D.N.Y. June 28, 1999).)

The plaintiff, James Quinn, a homosexual man and former police officer in Nassau County, was harassed for nine years by his coworkers and supervisors because of his sexual orientation. Quinn sued the police department and his former supervisors, alleging they violated his constitutional right to equal protection. A jury awarded Quinn compensatory and punitive damages.

In upholding the verdict, Judge Arthur Spatt relied on the U.S. Supreme Court's decision in Romer v. Evans, which struck down, on equal protection grounds, a Colorado constitutional amendment prohibiting legislation designed to protect homosexuals. (116 S. Ct. 1620 (1996).)

The Court said it was unable to find a connection between the amendment and legitimate state interests. Without such a connection, the Court reasoned, the inevitable inference from the amendment was that it was born of animosity toward gay men and lesbians.

Equating the conduct in Nassau County with the amendment at issue in the Colorado case, Spatt quoted Romer in characterizing the actions of the police officers and supervisors as "impermissible status-based conduct and policy divorced from any factual context from which [the court] could discern a relationship to legitimate state interests."

The court said the harassment by police department personnel could not withstand judicial scrutiny when it was motivated by prejudice toward homosexuals. "The `inevitable inference' from Quinn's mistreatment is that it was `born of animosity toward the class of persons affected,' namely homosexuals," Spratt wrote.

Quinn's lawyer, Rick Ostrove of Carle Place, New York, said the ruling gives homosexuals the same level of protection as racial minorities and women. "Judge Spar is the first judge to explicitly recognize that discrimination based on sexual orientation can give rise to a hostile work environment claim under the U.S. Constitution Equal Protection Clause," Ostrove said.