Protected beliefs under equality law
Speaking of firing people for not believing that men are women…
An internationally renowned researcher on tax avoidance is believed to be the first person in Britain to lose her job for saying that transgender women are not women.
Maya Forstater, 45, was told by her managers that she had used “offensive and exclusionary” language.
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Forstater has begun employment tribunal proceedings against her former employer, the London office of the Centre for Global Development (CGD) think tank. She hopes it will be a test case establishing that “gender-critical” views — which hold that being a woman is a biological fact, not a feeling — are protected beliefs under equality law. She is starting an appeal on the Crowdjustice website to raise £30,000 for the action.
It’s beyond me how people can justify firing a woman for holding that being a woman is a biological fact, not a feeling.
She is backed by Index on Censorship, whose director, Jodie Ginsberg, said: “From what I have read of her writing, I cannot see that Maya has done anything wrong other than express an opinion that many feminists share — that there should be a public and open debate about the distinction between sex and gender.”
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In an email, a CGD manager said: “You stated that a man’s internal feeling that he is a woman has no basis in material reality. A lot of people would find that offensive and exclusionary.”
CGD said it could not discuss staffing matters, but all staff “are expected to uphold our respectful workplace policy”.
It’s true that a lot of people would find that offensive and exclusionary, but then it’s also true that lot of people would find pretty much anything you can think of offensive and [insert relevant second problematico-word here]. It should take more than that to justify firing anyone.
I guess we can start firing atheists now? And Christians? And Muslims? And Jews? And vegans? And meat-eaters? And Republicans? And Democrats?
This is going to be… fun?
Can’t vouch for the UK but you can fire the last four without legal consequence in most places (assuming a union isn’t active); I’d sure as hell fire Republicans if they were surplus to requirements.
BKiSA – where can you legally fire vegans or meat-eaters? Seriously? Even here in red-state Nebraska where trucks are festooned with plates that say “Eat Beef: The west wasn’t won on salad” – we have vegans working (and eating) openly without being fired. I suppose there are some places where religious dictatorships or other conditions apply…but most places? Certainly not in the US. Nor can you legally fire people for being Democrats or Republicans here, which is why I still have my job.
A lot of people around here seem to assume you could fire an atheist, but I think even that is protected. And yes, even for people who don’t have unions. The only thing is, they don’t always know their rights, and they can’t usually afford a lawyer (which the union will give you).
iknklast,
In most U.S. states (and Nebraska does not appear to be an exception), barring any contractual (union or otherwise) restrictions, an employer can fire an employee for any reason, or no reason at all, except for those particular grounds barred by state or federal law.
Religion is a protected class, and that includes lack of religion, so generally speaking you can’t fire someone for being an atheist. (Some of these anti-discrimination laws only “kick in” once a company has a certain number of employees. And there are some common-sense exceptions, like a church can fire its minister if he becomes an atheist.)
Vegans are not a “protected class” under federal law, or any state law that I know of, so yeah, legally speaking an employer could say, “we don’t want no vegans working here, you’re fired!” (I’m assuming the veganism isn’t linked to religion, because then there might be an argument that this was a back-door method of religious discrimination.) It probably doesn’t happen often, because of a combination of (1) most employers just don’t have the inclination to be that petty; and (2) employers who have an issue with veganism or other traits probably sniff that out at the application stage, and either don’t give a reason or bury it under the general “just not a good fit” category.
Political party affiliation is not protected in most places, and even where it is protected, it’s often somewhat limited in scope.
Oh, and the rules are much different if we’re talking about government employees, because First Amendment restrictions come into play, and that gets rather complicated.
P.S. I had to double-check Nebraska because I knew there was some western state that surprisingly didn’t follow at-will. Turns out it’s Montana — with various exceptions including new employees on a probationary period, employers in that state actually have to have “good cause” to terminate. I’m sort of curious how that came about politically.
Oh, I didn’t mean that meat-eaters or vegans or Dems or Republicans were protected classes. I was just fantasizing about the utopia we’d be living in if everyone felt justified in firing anyone who “offended” them in any way or didn’t believe enough of the “right” things.