In Rajaram v. Meta Platforms, Inc., 2024 WL 3192178 (9th Cir. June 27, 2024), the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit – reversing a lower court – held that 42 U.S.C. § 1981 prohibits employers from discriminating against United States Citizens.
From the decision:
The disputed question is whether section 1981 prohibits employers from discriminating against United States citizens. The statutory text answers that question in the affirmative. An employer that discriminates against United States citizens gives one class of people—noncitizens, or perhaps some subset of noncitizens—a greater right to make contracts than “white citizens.” If some noncitizens have a greater right to make contracts than “white citizens,” then it is not true that “[a]ll persons” have the “same right” to make contracts as “white citizens.” That is precisely what the literal text of the statute prohibits.
The court thus concluded that plaintiff stated a claim by “alleg[ing] that Meta has violated that guarantee by giving noncitizens a greater right than citizens to contract for employment.”