

Lawyers: Firing of Adria Richards hard to defend in court - mathcinator
http://www.mercurynews.com/top-stories/ci_22853512/lawyers-firing-tech-developer-who-outed-inappropriate-comments

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tzaman
_They're basically retaliating against her for speaking out about sexual
harassment_

How is it sexual harassment when two guys have an internal joke that a third
party accidentally overhears?

~~~
vellum
It's an interesting case. (Standard IANAL disclaimer here).
<http://www.lcwlegal.com/66894>

Under California's Fair Employment law, if you complain about harassment, your
employer can't fire you for it. It doesn't have to be real harassment, either.
She could say, "I find blue shirts to be oppressive." It's the _act_ of
complaining that they can't retaliate against.

I think Sendgrid shot themselves in the foot when they explicitly said why
they were firing her for complaining on Twitter. If they had just said, "She's
being let go" and left it at that, they'd be in a better position, legally.

~~~
nugget
Except she did not complain to her employer. She tweeted and made it a public
issue, in a public forum, open for public discussion. The interesting legal
question seems to be: Does an employee have the right to bring serious harm
upon their employer as a result of an unreported, self-directed response to
[perceived] sexual harassment from others [not coworkers]? And in this case,
sexual harassment is quite a stretch since it was a mild joke and she was not
involved in the conversation. That's a pretty big door to leave open.

~~~
vellum
She did tweet and make it a public issue, but we don’t know that she didn’t
also complain to her employer. There was a lot of space in between the time
she tweeted their pic (3/17) and the time she got fired (3/20).

I agree that overhearing a dick pun probably wouldn’t be enough to establish a
hostile working environment, but you can’t fire someone for making even a
baseless complaint. I don’t think serious harm really factors in when it comes
to sexual harassment. Let’s say there was some horrible stuff going on and she
went on CNN, then the company’s stock tanked. Could they turn around and go,
“Well, you really damaged the company. Clean out your desk.”?

~~~
lutusp
> She did tweet and make it a public issue, but we don’t know that she didn’t
> also complain to her employer.

Doesn't matter. She could be fired for the Tweet, the public action, apart
from any complaint she may have made through channels.

> ... but you can’t fire someone for making even a baseless complaint.

Yes, you can, depending on how and where the complaint is made.

> Could they turn around and go, “Well, you really damaged the company. Clean
> out your desk.”?

Yes, if the proximate cause was her public interview, and if her public
statements were malicious and/or misleading. And they were.

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lutusp
A quote: "Let this serve as a message to everyone, our actions and words, big
or small, can have a serious impact," he wrote, adding he was the father of
three children. "I will be at pycon 2014, and I will joke and socialize with
everyone but I will also be mindful of my audience, accidental or otherwise."

Okay, let's examine this. Isn't the immediate goal to get more women into
science and technology, with the larger goal of assuring and defending gender
equality in all respects? Can we agree on that?

What does gender equality mean, exactly? Doesn't it mean treating all people
in a "gender-blind" way, just as avoiding racism means treating all people in
"color-blind" way?

On payday, women complain that they're not treated equally, and they're right
-- they should be treated equally. On election day, women have been given --
and deserve -- the right to be treated equally -- to do otherwise would
undermine democracy.

But the rest of the time, away from the pay window and the voting booth,
_women militantly demand to be treated unequally_. The PyCon incident is just
one example of an established pattern in which, before speaking to a friend,
you had better check your surroundings to make sure no theoretically equal
individuals can overhear what you're saying.

Any number of feminists have correctly pointed out that the first step in
oppressing and disenfranchising women is to argue that they're too delicate
for everyday reality and should be placed on a pedestal. Now it's women who
make that argument -- women who are actively participating in their own
oppression.

Women have every right to equal treatment -- in employment, in pay, in civil
rights. But for this to happen, _women need to stop demanding unequal
treatment_. The present problem is not men, many of whom see women as equals,
it's those women who don't want equality, and who yell it from the rooftops.

True gender equality will arrive, not when women are given the rights they
deserve (that's already happened), but when women accept and embrace those
rights.

~~~
hga
" _Isn't the immediate goal to get more women into science and technology..._
"

Humor me for a moment: why should I, a white now middle aged male have a goal
of getting a group of people "into science and technology" who include a
subset who are a proven danger to my company, job and career?

Ignore the idealized world and goals and focus on reality: as incidents like
this show, a generic woman is a higher risk employee. How does it benefit us
as individuals, or startup companies where _one_ major crazy incident can kill
them (out of opportunity costs alone)?

Doesn't the rest of your posting support this position?

~~~
lutusp
> ... why should I, a white now middle aged male have a goal of getting a
> group of people "into science and technology" ...

I should have said "not stand in the way" or words to that effect. Obviously
proactively working to get women (as women) into science and technology is
reverse discrimination. But under current rules, to stand in the way of gender
equality is both wrong and illegal.

~~~
hga
"Not stand in the way" works for me.

