A judge for the US District Court for the Northern District of California [official website] on Wednesday granted [order, PDF] a preliminary injunction to IMDb [entertainment site], a popular website that posts information about all things Hollywood, blocking enforcement of law meant to combat age discrimination. The injunction temporarily prevents the enforcement of AB 1687 [text], a California law designed to prevent age discrimination by stopping sites like IMDb from releasing the ages of actors. As the law “stops IMDb from publishing factual information,” Judge Vince Chhabria wrote, its First Amendment rights are likely being violated. Chabria said “the burden is on the government to show that the restriction is actually necessary to serve a compelling government interest. The government is highly unlikely to meet this burden.”

In January the Department of Labor filed [JURIST report] a lawsuit against Oracle America, Inc. alleging the technology company pays white male workers more than their counterparts with the same job title. Age discrimination claims are notoriously difficult to bring to court; in the 2016 fiscal year, almost 70 percent [EEOC statistics] of age discrimination claims were thrown out for failing to show reasonable cause. In 2013, the Supreme Court granted [JURIST report] certiorari to a petitioner seeking to sue directly under the Equal Protection Clause [Cornell LII] of the Fourteenth amendment, rather than under the Age Discrimination in Employment Act [text]. However, the court decided [SCOTUS blog] that certiorari had been improperly granted, and did not resolve the question.