There is, for example, a legal debate over exactly what sort of "scrutiny," as it's called when courts look for impermissible discrimination, should be applied to laws that single out gays and lesbians.
"You have my assurance that no one who comes forward will be victimised for raising complaints or coming forward with evidence and we reaffirm not only our commitment to equality provisions but also to taking appropriate disciplinary sanctions against any employee or member who is found, following due process, to have engaged in harassment or impermissible discrimination".
The Supreme Court has consistently held that otherwise-impermissible discrimination cannot be justified by statistical generalizations about groups, even if those generalizations are on average accurate.
But, as the Federal Circuit reasoned, enforcement of the disparaging-trademarks provision means that the government approves certain speakers' messages and disapproves others, engaging in impermissible viewpoint discrimination.
The appeals court upheld most of the welfare law's restrictions, but said that the prohibition on challenging existing law amounted to impermissible viewpoint discrimination because it "clearly seeks to discourage challenges to the status quo".
Last year a federal appeals court in New York correctly struck down the provision because its attempt to "discourage challenges to the status quo" amounted to impermissible "viewpoint discrimination" by the government.
Writing for the majority, Justice Anthony Kennedy strongly seconded the reasoning used by a federal appeals court in New York two years ago when it struck down the provision on the grounds that its attempt to "discourage challenges to the status quo" amounted to impermissible viewpoint discrimination under the First Amendment.
In his appeal before the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals William argued that Robert Martin, the prosecutor, had engaged in "impermissible racial discrimination in the jury selection", Martin had removed all blacks from Williams' jury, in violation of the Equal Protection Clause of the US constitution.
"Disclosure in this highly charged political environment and in the face of an unprecedented and vehemently legally contested investigation is impermissible viewpoint discrimination and plainly violative of ARL's First Amendment rights," Thad Davis, a lawyer for the nonprofit, said in his letter to the U.S. Supreme Court.
See Brief of Amici Curiae of Pacific Legal Foundation, et al. ("PLF") in Support of Petitioner at 5. Either way, the Court will clarify when employers' efforts to comply with Title VII's disparate impact provisions crosses over the impermissible line to discrimination.
The Court also has said that racial discrimination is impermissible because there has been a long history in the United States of overt public and private discrimination against people because of the color of their skin.
