Professor Soucek Files Amicus Letter With State's High Court in Key LGBTQ+ Case

Professor Brian Soucek and UC Berkeley School of Law Dean Erwin Chemerinsky filed an amicus letter with the California Supreme Court in the key LGBTQ+ rights/First Amendment case Taking Offense v. State of California.

The letter supports the state of California’s petition for review of the case. In June, a Third District Court of Appeal three-judge panel rules that SB 219 -- a California law enacted in 2017 -- is unconstitutional in requiring long-term care staff to refer to facility residents by their preferred names and pronouns.

“We write to urge this Court to take up and correct the decision of the Court of Appeal in Taking Offense v. State of California, which threatens both the lived equality of some of our state’s most vulnerable residents and the coherence of our state’s free speech doctrine,” Soucek and Chemerinsky write in the letter.

Soucek discussed the case in a Sept. 14 Twitter thread.

Professor Soucek’s primary teaching and research interests are antidiscrimination law, civil procedure, constitutional law, and refugee/asylum law. He holds a J.D. from Yale Law School and a Ph.D. from Columbia University. He has clerked for U.S. District Court Judge Mark R. Kravitz in Connecticut, and Judge Guido Calabresi of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit. Professor Soucek is a UC Davis Chancellor’s Fellow.