South Dakota Debates Adding Anti-Discrimination Protections For Its LGBT Citizens

For Immediate Release
January 5, 2010

LOS ANGELES – Today the Williams Institute at UCLA School of Law released a new research report exploring the issues of employment discrimination against lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) citizens of South Dakota. The report finds that providing protection from employment discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation or gender identity will protect as many as 14,000 LGBT South Dakotans.

The report summarizes the best available data from government sources and from recent research. One key finding is that large percentages of LGBT people report discrimination and harassment in the workplace. A 2008 survey found that 37% of gay and lesbian people reported workplace harassment in the last five years.

“Protecting employees from discrimination in the workplace is not only good for individual employees, but it also helps businesses. Employees who do not fear harassment or discrimination report higher job satisfaction and greater productivity” explains study co-author Lee Badgett, Research Director of the Williams Institute and director of the Center for Public Policy and Administration at the University of Massachusetts Amherst.

The report also finds that passing legislation to prohibit discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation and gender identity will not result in a burden on government agencies. Instead, the report predicts that approximately 5 LGBT South Dakotans per year may file complaints with state agencies.

“Based on the experiences of other states that have passed employment protections for LGBT employees, there is no evidence to suggest that expanding employment protections to LGBT employees in South Dakota would encumber the services of existing agencies,” said Naomi Goldberg, a public policy fellow at The Williams Institute.

This study can be accessed at the Williams Institute website, www.law.ucla.edu/williamsinstitute.

The Williams Institute for Sexual Orientation Law and Public Policy advances law and public policy through rigorous, independent research and scholarship, and disseminates its work through a variety of education programs and media to judges, legislators, lawyers, other policy makers and the public.