Tag: Maureen Holland

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Memphis Gaydar News

Gay Memphis Police Officer Sues the City for Discrimination

Davin Clemons

Memphis Police officer Davin Clemons, a TACT officer who serves as the department’s LGBTQ liaison, has filed a lawsuit against the city of Memphis and the Memphis Police Department (MPD) alleging discrimination based on his sexual orientation, his disability, and his religion.

He’s being represented by attorney Maureen Holland, the local attorney who was involved in the Obergefell v. Hodges U.S. Supreme Court case that led to same-sex marriage being legalized across the country.

MPD’s LGBTQ liaison role was re-started in 2014 after a lull in participation, and Clemons was the first MPD officer named to the role after its re-launch. In that role, he’s responsible for helping to build trust between the LGBTQ community and the police department. But Clemons alleges that role has backfired, causing some superior officers to discriminate against him because he is gay. 

After being appointed as liaison in August 2014, Clemons claims he was harassed, reprimanded, and humiliated by other officers. 

Much of the discrimination came from an officer named as Lt. Hulsey in the lawsuit. One incident says Hulsey approached Clemons on Beale on July 4th, 2014, and “yelled and degraded Officer Clemons in front of thousands of citizens at a Fourth of July event. … Officer Clemons believes that Lt. Hulsey engaged in this behavior due to sexual stereotypes and, in particular, a belief that Officer Clemons was not sufficiently masculine, was too feminine, or due to a belief that men should only date women, not other men.”

Clemons also claims he has been discriminated against for a medical condition. Clemons has been diagnosed with pseudofolliculitis barbae, a condition that causes serious breakouts on the face after shaving, and his doctor has recommended that he not shave. He had a “shaving profile” on file with MPD, which was supposed to prevent the MPD from forcing him to shave his facial hair (a requirement of most officers). Clemons has said superior officers have harassed him and forced him to shave, despite his doctor’s orders.

Additionally, Clemons claims discrimination based on his religion. Clemons and his partner Darnell Gooch (also a Memphis police officer) founded Cathedral of Praise Church of Memphis, an LGBTQ-inclusive church. Clemons claims he’d asked off for a religious observance on August 13th, 2014, and he’d been granted the day off by a Lt. Jenkins, but the lawsuit says Hulsey refused to remove Clemons from an overtime detail. 

Reads the lawsuit: “This incident lead to a heated verbal disagreement between Officer Clemons and Lt. Hulsey whereby Lt. Hulsey was yelling and screaming and pointing his finger at Officer Clemons and saying that he (Clemons) is going to work the mandated overtime. Officer Clemons objected to working a voluntary overtime on a mandatory basis. Officer Clemons did not yell or scream at Lt. Hulsey in voicing his disagreement. Officer Clemons requested a witness or union representative and Lt. Hulsey denied it. … Officer Clemons was charged with insubordination and disobedience of an order and originally given a 20-day suspension.”

At another time, Clemons, who has a leadership role in his church, claimed Hulsey called him a “false prophet” and that Clemons’ faith “is not to be taken seriously because Officer Clemons is gay.”

“The purpose of the LGBTQ liaisons is to improve trust and relationships, but this is not possible if the appointed Memphis Police LGBTQ liaison is being discriminated against, harassed, and retaliated against due to his participation as a LGBTQ liaison and due to his sex, religion, and disability,” reads the lawsuit.

The suit claims the alleged discrimination against Clemons is a violation of Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Americans with Disabilities Act.

Clemons is seeking at least $300,000 in compensatory damages and losses, back pay, lost benefits, and other economic losses. He would also like the officers named in the suit to receive training to prevent discrimination based on sexual orientation. 

Holland released the following statement from Clemons: “I’m proud to be a police officer for the MPD. I do, however, want to be treated fairly on the job. I believe that all employees should be treated fairly, based on the quality of their work, not on their sexual orientation, religious beliefs, disability, race, color, ethnicity or any other legally protected characteristic. The purpose of this suit is to protect the right of city employees to fair and nondiscriminatory treatment. I am a committed police officer and want to continue my work without interference and discrimination.”

At a press conference introducing the new Memphis Animal Services director Friday afternoon, Mayor Jim Strickland said he could not comment on Clemons’ lawsuit.

Read the lawsuit here:

[pdf-1]

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Memphis Gaydar News

Q&A with Memphis Couple in Supreme Court Same-Sex Marriage Case

Maureen Holland, Ijpe DeKoe, Thom Kostura

When they married in New York in 2011, Ijpe DeKoe and Thom Kostura probably never imagined their marriage would make U.S. history. But after returning from a tour of duty in Afghanistan in May 2012, DeKoe, full-time sergeant in the Army Reserves, was transferred to the base in Millington. And suddenly, the couple found that their marriage wasn’t recognized by the state of Tennessee.

Fast forward to 2013, when DeKoe and Kostura signed on as one of three Tennessee couples challenging the state’s same-sex marriage ban. That lawsuit made its way to the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals, along with similar suits from Kentucky, Ohio, and Michigan. But the Sixth Circuit ruled to uphold marriage bans in those states, a split from other appellate courts’ rulings on same-sex marriage. That ruling was appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court, and today, justices heard oral arguments in the case. Marriage equality advocates believe the Supreme Court’s decision in this case will decide the fate of marriage in the country once and for all. A decision is expected by June.

DeKoe, Kostura, and Holland were in the courtroom today, and they took a few minutes to share their experiences with the Flyer.

Give us a rundown of your morning at the Supreme Court.
DeKoe: We were up by 6 a.m. And we met down in the [hotel] lobby as a group. We were at the Supreme Court by about 7 a.m. They parked us in the back and had us walk around the building, which was pretty amazing. There were about 200 to 300 people lined up on the sidewalk, supporters. We did some interviews, and then the six plaintiffs from Tennessee walked into the Supreme Court at about 8:30 a.m., where we got to wait for about three hours. Sixteen of the plaintiffs went in for Question One, and then we swapped out for Question Two with us. We were in the courtroom for about an hour.

Did any of you speak before the court?
Holland: No. We had two oralists, Doug Hallward-Driemeier and Mary Bonauto. Mary went first, and she addressed Question One, as to whether or not the Fourteenth Amendment of the U.S. Constitution requires states to marry same-sex couples. And Doug did Question Two, which was if a same-sex couple is married someplace else, in a state like New York that recognizes their marriage, and they move to Tennessee, is Tennessee required under the Constitution to recognize that marriage? 

During the last few minutes of Doug’s argument, during his rebuttal, he mentioned Thom and Ijpe and their situation as a personal explanation to the court about how this actually affects the lives of individuals and how it’s not just a philosophy. He mentioned all of the plaintiffs, including Thom and Ijpe.

We had 16 tickets to allot to plaintiffs for Question One, and we were allowed, in a very nice concession by the court, to swap out individuals, so we could allow a different set of 16 individuals into Question Two. So all of the plaintiffs could hear some of the arguments. All three couples on the Tennessee team were able to hear all of the presentation from both sides regarding Question Two. 

From the analysis I’ve read today, I was a little surprised at some of the questions from the more conservative justices, like when Chief Justice Antonin Scalia asked why there was no gay marriage in ancient Greece. Did any of their questions catch you off-guard or strike you as weird?
Holland: We certainly prepare as best we can for a series of questions that might come to mind. Ancient Greece, I don’t know if that was exactly on our radar, but the arguments by respondents that same-sex marriage has been between a man and a woman throughout history is the same type of concept that we were prepared to address. 

What were your impressions of how the case went today? Do you think the justices will rule in your favor?
Kostura: Ijpe and I do not have law backgrounds, and our oralist [Doug Hallward-Driemeier] went first for Question Two, the one that we actually witnessed. And [when we heard] the questions that were coming back from the justices, we were like, “Oh no, they’re going to go really conservative on this.” But then, the other side went, and it went from us thinking it was going to go unanimously against us to thinking it would go unanimously for us. So I think that my impression is that the justices were really rigorous to both sides. Ijpe and I walked away from it optimistically. We don’t know enough law to weigh in, but we know we have a very strong team. And that they argued the strongest case for us that they could.

DeKoe: It was very clear that the justices were asking the peoples’ questions, whatever side they took. The other part of it that struck me was that Doug got the opportunity to close [in Question Two], which was incredibly powerful, and it completely changed the tone of the room. He was able to incorporate each of the three stories of the Tennessee plaintiffs into his closing arguments, so it took this big theoretical problem down to a really human level. It was remarkable how that happened, and it was chilling to be mentioned in front of the justices.

Many seem to think Justices Anthony Kennedy and John Roberts will be the deciding factor. Is that the impression you got?
Holland: There was a feeling that the numbers might be better [than expected]. Obviously, you’re hoping for a 5-4, but you start to get the feeling that it could be more. But you’re not sure. There was a very positive feeling after Question Two. The Question One questions were harder to read, and there were definitely more questions on both sides. And it does feel like a narrower sense, from our perspective, that we would prevail. But I can tell you that the lawyers are hopeful that it’s at least 5-4, but we can see that some of the questions might tip some of the justices slightly up. But that wasn’t clear from Question One as much as from Question Two.

Much has been made of the anti-marriage equality protester who was ejected from the courtroom after he yelled something homophobic. Did any of you get to see that go down?
Holland: I did. That happened in Question One, just as the solicitor general is about to walk to the podium. The screaming and yelling begins with a protest or an outburst about God. And there was continual yelling while they got this person out of the courtroom. And it was quite loud. The justices asked the solicitor general if he’d like to take a moment because it was so disruptive. He started to walk away from the podium, and then he just turned right around and said, “Well, you know actually, I’m ready to go.” And he launched right in to his advocacy, which was wonderful to see and hear.

Kostura: From our perspective, because we were not in the courtroom at the time … as you can imagine, at the Supreme Court, there are a lot of logistics, and you get put into a lot of very specific places. Ijpe and I were in the lower level, and as [the protester] was being brought into the main gallery in front of the courtroom, the screaming was echoing down to our level. We weren’t allowed up to the gallery to see what happened. And of course, Ijpe and I, since it was such a controversial thing, when we hear all this screaming, we don’t want to run toward it. But that’s when Ijpe and I realized that there is this strong opposition, and there are these people who will try to break into the courtroom in order to protest.

Speaking of protesters, did you see many outside the courthouse? And did you feel like supporters of marriage equality outnumbered protesters?
DeKoe: There were definitely a lot more people for us. But I will give the protesters [against us] credit. They were very well organized. They came walking in and set up and had their PA going, and they got their message out. But they were a vocal minority and a very loud minority.

However, the friendly group far outweighed them. When we were inside the courtroom, we didn’t have any communications with the outside because we’d already turned off our cell phones. So we had no idea the crowd [outside] was growing. So it went from 200 to 300 people when we walked in to more than 1,000 when we left. As we walked through the main gallery and we stepped through those doors, we realized that the roar [of support] we could hear inside was even louder outside on the steps. It was a wall of sound in support. I could see the signs [from protestors], but I couldn’t hear anything negative because everyone was championing and yelling so loudly in our favor. These are people who took time out of their day and work week to come out and say “Your marriage has value. And we respect your marriage, and we want to be there for you while you’re inside fighting that fight.”

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Memphis Gaydar News

Memphis Marriage Rally

Maureen Holland, Ijpe DeKoe, Thom Kostura

Advocates of marriage equality will gather at the Memphis Gay & Lesbian Community Center (892 S. Cooper) Monday evening at 5:30 p.m. for a rally kicking off the marriage equality case before the U.S. Supreme Court. The nation’s high court will begin hearing oral arguments in the case on Tuesday, April 28th.

Memphians Ijpe DeKoe and Thom Kostura are plantiffs in the case, and they’re represented by local attorney Maureen Holland. They flew to Washington D.C. last week to prepare for oral arguments. The Tennessee case is lumped with same-sex marriage cases from Ohio, Kentucky, and Michigan, all of which are on appeal after the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals upheld marriage bans in the four states last year.

The Sixth Circuit’s decision was a split from other appellate courts, the rest of which have ruled to overturn marriage bans. Marriage equality advocates believe the Supreme Court’s decision in this case will decide the fate of marriage in the country.

Monday’s rally, hosted by the Tennessee Equality Project, will feature a performance by the Neshoba Unitarian Universalist show choir. Attendees are encouraged to bring signs and posters showing support for equality.

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News The Fly-By

U of M Law Students Work to Enhance Non-discrimination Ordinance

CREDIT: Ryan David Jones

In 2012, the Memphis City Council passed an amendment adding “sexual orientation” and “gender identity” to a list of workplace protections for city employees. But some believe the ordinance isn’t clear enough on what happens when an employee is actually discriminated against.

A group of law students from Memphis and across the country is spending their spring break this week working on an enforcement mechanism for the ordinance during the University of Memphis Cecil C. Humphreys Law School’s Alternative Spring Break program, in which law students offer pro bono services in various areas of civil and human rights.

“We’ll have students researching the ways in which other city’s [non-discrimination] ordinances are actually enforced on the local level. Hopefully, we can come up with a proposal for what the legal remedies are for violation of the ordinance in Memphis,” said Sarah Smith, a second-year U of M law student and the coordinator for the Alternative Spring Break program.

Maureen Holland, a local attorney who is representing a Memphis couple in the gay marriage case appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court, will be advising the law students in the Alternative Spring Break’s LGBT Equality Legislation Track.

“You have this ordinance, which is great, but it doesn’t say what happens. It says you can’t discriminate, but what happens if you do?” Holland asked.

Holland said the ordinance has been invoked in civil service cases. She said city workers who have civil service protections get the benefit of having a hearing before a termination or suspension, so those workers can invoke any city policies then. But Holland said city workers who don’t have civil service protections “are left to their own creativity” when they need to file complaints of violation of the non-discrimination ordinance.

City attorney Allen Wade said any city employee can take their discrimination complaint to the city’s human resources department, but if the department doesn’t take the employee’s desired action, that employee can file a lawsuit against the city. Holland said that should be spelled out better within the ordinance.

“Most anti-discrimination laws have the right to a private lawsuit as a piece. The federal [non-discrimination] law does, and the state does, too,” Holland said. “But the city ordinance doesn’t have anything like that. That’s something we can look at in terms of the enforcement mechanism or in terms of the remedies.”

If the law students working on this want to see their enforcement mechanism added to the city ordinance, they would have to find a councilmember to sponsor an ordinance to adopt the changes, and it would have to be approved by the full council.

There are 10 students on the LGBT track for the spring break program including three from out of state. The Alternative Spring Break program is in its fifth year, but the LGBT track is new.

“One area that we felt is underserved in the legal community in Memphis is the LGBT population,” Smith said.

Besides the LGBT track, 60 other law students from across the country will be working in four other civil rights-related tracks during this week’s spring break program. Those include helping felons restore their voting rights, assisting minors who have immigrated to the country as children gain legal status for employment and college access, working with low-income elderly people to draft wills, and helping people file divorce petitions.

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News The Fly-By

Gay couples From Memphis Tie the Knot in Arkansas

May 15th has always been a special date for Alicia and Carrie Smith. The Memphis couple met on that date five years ago, and they held a civil ceremony honoring their commitment to one another on that day in 2009. But now they’ll be celebrating their wedding anniversary one day earlier.

Alicia and Carrie drove to Little Rock, Arkansas, on May 14th to get married, just a few days after Pulaski County Circuit Judge Chris Piazza declared that state’s ban on same-sex marriage to be unconstitutional, making it the first Southern state to legalize gay marriage.

Newlyweds Alicia and Carrie Smith

Ever since Piazza delivered his ruling, attempts have been made by Arkansas Attorney General Dustin McDaniel to stop the marriages. Alicia and Carrie were afraid to wait until their May 15th anniversary for fear that the Arkansas Supreme Court would issue a stay and halt the few counties that were issuing licenses to same-sex couples.

“We’ve always kept everything on that day until today,” said Alicia by phone, just minutes after she and Carrie became legally wed at the Pulaski County Clerk’s Office. “We were afraid to wait another day, so we joked that now we get a two-day anniversary.”

Alicia said after the Defense of Marriage Act was overturned last year, she and Carrie had decided that if marriage became legal in Arkansas before Tennessee, they’d marry there.

“We knew some state would be first [in the South],” said Chris Sanders, executive director of the Tennessee Equality Project. “It makes a lot of sense for West Tennessee couples to go to Arkansas to get married if they need the federal benefits now. They’ll get those if they have a valid state marriage somewhere.”

Laura Phillips, who serves on the board of directors for the Northwest Arkansas Center for Equality in Fayetteville, Arkansas, officiated the first same-sex wedding in the entire state on Saturday, May 10th. She continued to marry couples throughout last week, all the while waiting for the other shoe to drop and the court to issue a stay.

“I have no idea how many couples we’ve married so far. Monday was a blur. We thought the stay was going to happen at any time,” Phillips said.

But instead, last Thursday, Piazza issued an order explaining his ruling to remove all vestiges of same-sex marriage bans from the state’s laws. McDaniel has now asked the Arkansas Supreme Court for an emergency order stopping the distribution of gay marriage licenses.

Meanwhile, a federal lawsuit filed in Tennessee seeking recognition for three couples that married in states that allow gay marriage but live in Tennessee, has made its way to the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals. The couples’ marriages were being recognized thanks to a preliminary injunction issued by a federal judge. But that is now being challenged by the state.

One of the couples named in the lawsuit — Ijpe DeKoe and Thom Kostura — live in Memphis.

“We’re continuing to advocate for equality in marriage,” said Maureen Holland, a Memphis attorney who represents the couples named in the case. “We think marriage is the same, and we shouldn’t have different classes of marriage.”