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From: ciaraldi@rochester.UUCP (Mike Ciaraldi)
Newsgroups: net.legal,net.women
Subject: Re: Re: ERA and bathrooms
Message-ID: <2485@rochester.UUCP>
Date: Tue, 23-Oct-84 23:38:06 EDT
Article-I.D.: rocheste.2485
Posted: Tue Oct 23 23:38:06 1984
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> *****
> 
> Assuming that there are federal rules regulating male and female
> bathrooms, suits to test the law on this issue would ultimately have
> to be decided by the courts.  Also assuming that the Supreme Court would
> actually grant cert (ie, agree to hear the case) what justice would rule 
> in favor of unisex bathrooms?  
> 
> Trisha (we have unisex bathrooms in our house) O Tuama


Remember that under the 13th, 14th, and 15th amendments, the
Supreme Court for many years (up until Brown vs. Board of
Education of Topeka, 1956, maybe?) that "separate but equal" was OK,
i.e. that you could have education segregated by race
as long as all races got the same quality education.
This was overturned
on the basis that "separate is inherently unequal".
And this was strictly on constitutuional grounds, not the
result of legislation.
So, presumably the Court might rule under
the ERA (if passed) that unisex bathrooms are required, in the
same way that bathrooms seprepated by race were eventually banned.
Whether the cCourt would or not depends on how they see things.

This may be related to the present legislative situation.
As I recall, the Civil Rights Act of 1964 forbids
discrimination in employment, etc. on the
grounds of race, color, sex, age, or religion, unless
there are "bona fide reasons" for it.
Thus,a producer making a movie of the life of Winston Churchill
would probably be within his rights under the law if he
rejected black actors applying for the lead role, since
maintaining verissimilitude is a valid consideration
in this type of employment.  A manager who only hires 
white engineers would probably not be within his rights.
As I said in a previous posting, this is up to the
courts to decide, what is "reasonable".

Incidentally, there have been cases of thespians crossing
color and sex lines, e.g the woman (forgot her name, sorry)
who earned an Oscar for portraying a man in _The Year
of Living Dangerously_,  or all-black productions of 
Hamlet, or even Charlie Chan (who has always been played
by white actors).

Mike Ciaraldi
ciaraldi@rochesterr
seismo!rochester!ciaraldi