N.J.’s Law Against Discrimination mostly unaffected by recent Supreme Court case, Platkin argues

The U.S. Supreme Court’s decision last month in 303 Creative LLC v. Elenis struck a blow against anti-discrimination statutes nationwide, but according to enforcement guidelines released today by New Jersey Attorney General Matt Platkin and the state Division of Civil Rights, the ruling will only have a limited effect on New Jersey’s Law Against Discrimination (LAD).

Under the Supreme Court’s 6-3 ruling, anti-discrimination laws cannot compel someone to produce a creative work that violates their personal values or beliefs. The specific case at hand involved Colorado web designer Lorie Smith, who refused to make a website for a supposed same-sex wedding.

But as Platkin’s guidance lays out, the decision only applies in a narrow range of scenarios directly involving free speech. In order for a business to be protected by the decision from anti-discrimination laws, the guidance states, its services must be customized to each customer and expressive of the creator’s own speech.

“Because the overwhelming majority of places of public accommodation do not provide ‘customized,’ ‘original,’ and ‘expressive’ products or services to the public that express the creator’s own speech, the Court’s decision does not exempt most places of public accommodation – or most goods and services – from the LAD,” the guidance reads.

Thus, the guidance argues, a business that caters weddings can’t refuse to cater a same-sex wedding, since the services provided have little to do with the caterers’ personal speech. Businesses would also be unable to refuse customers based purely on protected characteristics like sexuality or race, even if that business creates customized, expressive products.

“The Supreme Court’s misguided decision in 303 Creative does not change a simple fact: New Jersey’s laws remain among the strongest in the nation for protecting people, including members of the LGBTQ+ community, against bias and discrimination,” Platkin said in a statement. “Our commitment to enforcing those laws and ensuring our residents’ rights to fair treatment remains unwavering.”