A Christian-owned funeral home in Michigan has agreed to pay $250,000 to settle a legal dispute with a now-deceased transgender employee who was at the heart of a landmark US Supreme Court this summer. The Court ruled that the word “sex” in Title VII of the U.S. Code prohibited more than discrimination based on biological sex and now included subjective psychological understandings of that term. 
 
The case began in 2014 when the EEOC accused Harris Funeral Homes of sex discrimination in violation of Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 for firing Stephens when she told the company's president she planned to transition from male to female. A federal judge dismissed the case in 2016, saying that Harris Homes was shielded from the lawsuit because its president is a devout Christian who fired Stephens because of his religious beliefs.

Because of the Supreme Court’s ruling, this past Monday, Harris Funeral Homes signed off on a final joint consent decree that brought the 2014 lawsuit to a close. Harris Funeral Homes agreed to donate $130,000 to the estate of Aimee Stephens, the former employee, and $120,000 to the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) to cover her legal fees. 

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