King & Spalding to Receive $500,000 to Defend Discrimination Against LGBT People

by Michael Jones · 2011-04-19 10:47:00 UTC
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The law firm of King & Spalding is set to receive quite the paycheck from taxpayers, all to defend one of the most anti-gay laws in U.S. history.

As Amanda Terkel notes at HuffPost this afternoon, King & Spalding will reap about $520 per hour -- with a sum not to exceed $500,000 -- for work that their firm does to defend the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) in federal court. The contract details come after an announcement yesterday that U.S. Speaker of the House, Rep. John Boehner, had tapped a partner at King & Spalding, Paul Clement, to defend DOMA.

Here's hoping that $500,000 is enough to compensate King & Spalding for the stain that's about to go on their record. Because when the history books are written, and we look back on what entities helped support discrimination in U.S. law, King & Spalding's name will be at the top.

As we noted yesterday, this is particularly frustrating because King & Spalding had up until now a pretty awesome record when it came to diversity and LGBT inclusion. And as Project Q Atlanta reports, King & Spalding had received a 95 rating from the Human Rights Campaign's Corporate Equality Index -- one of the highest ratings for an Atlanta-based business. (King & Spalding has offices in more than a dozen cities around the world, including Atlanta.)

Moreover, King & Spalding has an entire section of their website touting LGBT issues, including a non-discrimination policy, and the organization's belief that LGBT employees lend real value to their firm.

How odd, then, that while championing LGBT employees, they're working in real time to take away rights from those same folks. And not only that, they'll be making a pretty penny off of taxpayers in order to defend discrimination.

Talk about disappointing. If you'd like to send King & Spalding's Diversity Committee a message, asking them not to defend bigotry against LGBT Americans, sign our petition here. King & Spalding has done great legal work, and has some of the best legal minds working for it. Why would they want their reputation to become known as the law firm that told LGBT Americans that they deserved to be second class citizens?

Photo credit: burningkarma

Michael Jones is a Change.org Editor. He has worked in the field of human rights communications for a decade, most recently for Harvard Law School.

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