Concept
Protected Bases
Membership in discriminatory organizations
Protected Bases
Rule 3.6(A) forbids a judge to belong to an organization that practices invidious discrimination on seven stated bases: race, sex, gender, religion, national origin, ethnicity, and sexual orientation.1 The rule names those seven and stops. Discrimination on any other ground, however distasteful, fails the third step of the core-prohibition checklist, and a judge's membership in a group that excludes on that ground does not violate the rule.
The seven bases overlap, and a correct answer does not depend on choosing the one perfect label. A club that turns away people of a particular ancestry can be described as discriminating on race, national origin, or ethnicity, and exclusion on any one of them satisfies the list. Sex and gender appear as separate entries. Religion covers a club that refuses members of a given faith, and sexual orientation covers a club that refuses gay or lesbian applicants. Work a problem in two moves: identify the trait the club uses to exclude, then check that trait against the seven.
The judge's general prohibition on bias is a different matter, because it is open-ended. The Model Code treats bias toward any class of people as improper, "including, but not limited to" twelve named classes: the seven above plus disability, age, marital status, socioeconomic status, and political affiliation.2 That phrase makes the general list a floor with no ceiling. The membership rule contains no such phrase, so five of the twelve classes never appear in 3.6(A). A common error is to read the longer list into the shorter rule. A club that excludes on an unlisted ground may still be assessed under the judge's other obligations, but that is a separate analysis, and the club does not trigger the membership rule.
An exam problem that sets a club excluding on a listed basis beside a club that is merely selective tests exactly this boundary.
The lodge differs from the other two clubs in the one respect that decides the outcome: it excludes on a trait the rule names. Whether the other clubs are selective, or whether their selectivity seems unfair, does not change the answer.