Press Releases

(Philadelphia, NY April 17, 2009) — Just days after Lambda Legal, with the assistance of Kirkland & Ellis LLP, filed a federal lawsuit against the Indian River Central School District, the District said it will allow Ashley Petranchuk to form a Gay-Straight Alliance (GSA).

(NEW YORK, August 5, 1999) -- A unanimous New Jersey Supreme Court has unequivocally rejected the Boy Scout's anti-gay policies, a phenomenal victory hailed by Lambda Legal Defense and Education Fund both for its client, the exemplary Eagle Scout James Dale, and for all who believe in Scouting values.

(NEW YORK, March 29, 2000) — Lambda Legal Defense and Education Fund filed its legal brief with the United States Supreme Court Wednesday, urging the justices to uphold the New Jersey Supreme Court’s unanimous ruling against the Boy Scouts of America’s all-out ban on gay members.

(NEW YORK, June 28, 2000) —The United States Supreme Court, in a disappointing decision Wednesday, overturned the New Jersey Supreme Court’s unanimous decision that denied the Boy Scouts of America an exemption from that state’s anti-discrimination law in order to bar gay members.

Last Friday, the U.S. Department of Justice filed a friend-of-the-court brief in support of discrimination claims against Indian River Central School District in a federal lawsuit filed by Lambda Legal, with the assistance of Kirkland & Ellis LLP, on behalf of Charlie Pratt, who suffered sexist and antigay harassment at school.

(NEW YORK, June 21, 2001) — In the year since the United States Supreme Court allowed the Boy Scouts of America to ban gay members, America is responding with unprecedented outrage against gay discrimination, Lambda Legal Defense and Education Fund said Thursday.

(SALT LAKE CITY, April 19, 2000) -- Some Salt Lake City students are asking a federal judge to order the assistant superintendent overseeing their high school to open the school door to their club to discuss classroom subjects such as American History, Government and Sociology from the perspective of gay people.

Today, as we heard news of the fourth apparent teenage suicide in recent weeks, following antigay bullying and harassment, we felt overwhelming grief and anger. Losing one young person because of bigotry and hate is too much—but two, three, four?

(SALT LAKE CITY, November 13, 2001) — A long, expensive court battle against student-run groups intended to support gay youth and their friends has ended for the state of Utah, which spent a quarter million dollars defending a Salt Lake City school board ban, the students’ lawyers said Tuesday.