
Tesla fires female engineer who alleged sexual harassment - sgift
https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2017/jun/01/tesla-fires-aj-vandermeyden-lawsuit-sexual-harrassment
======
shard972
Is there many cases where you sue your employer, go make public statements
about the case and still have a job at the end of the day?

~~~
ocdtrekkie
Well, I guess the question at the end of the day is if her claims have merit.
If she can prove the discrimination, her termination is illegal. If she's been
unreasonable, and Tesla has indeed, as it claims, made every effort to meet
her needs, I absolutely can see why they'd fire her.

~~~
SomeStupidPoint
Tesla isn't merely claiming they've met her needs, they're actually claiming
that she's received privileged treatment because she's a woman:

> Tesla added that Vandermeyden had been granted numerous positions “over
> other more qualified candidates” and was “given special treatment and
> opportunities for advancement that were unwarranted based on her
> qualifications”.

~~~
ocdtrekkie
Tesla says, and Vandermeyden says something else. But if this is going to
court, I suspect the outcome is very much going to depend on which party can
prove their side of the story.

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lightbyte
>At the time, Vandermeyden said she was hopeful her lawsuit and public
comments would not end her career at the company.

How could she honestly expect to keep her job with an employer she is sueing
and smearing in the media? Why would she even want to continue working there?

~~~
matt4077
Her employer is a company. Companies don't have the emotions people have.

In large organisations, the effect of employee lawsuits may even be
beneficial, because it allows for a mechanism to escalate serious issues
before they become even worse, while the high barriers in terms of cost,
emotional burden etc. serve to discourage frivolous complaints.

~~~
tertius
> Companies don't have the emotions people have.

You forget, companies solely consist of people and are solely owned by people.
It's a legal vehicle.

People, of which companies consist, have feelings and emotions.

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bluedino
Their head of HR just left last week. The replacement is from EA, a company
who really knows how to handle their employees.

[https://www.buzzfeed.com/carolineodonovan/following-
allegati...](https://www.buzzfeed.com/carolineodonovan/following-allegations-
of-discrimination-and-labor?utm_term=.mpqeb87ZB#.cfNK3rb81)

~~~
pandaman
Even though the article you referenced says "Entertainment Arts" she is
actually from the "ea_spouse"'s EA (Electronic Arts) as per Tesla's own PR:
[https://www.tesla.com/blog/tesla-welcomes-gaby-
toledano](https://www.tesla.com/blog/tesla-welcomes-gaby-toledano)

------
balozi
"Tesla added that Vandermeyden had been granted numerous positions over other
more qualified candidates and was given special treatment and opportunities
for advancement that were unwarranted based on her qualifications”.

Its amazing to see a company so openly admit that it gives special treatment
to some employees. Everyone suspects that to be the case but nobody says a
thing. Maybe the rest of us should file lawsuits.

~~~
mcbruiser3
I suspect this is happening a lot in today's PC climate, consciously or
unconsciously. It's not a 100% merit-based system anymore. Maybe it never was,
I dunno, but I do know some people can never be pleased and are always crying
wolf.

“[Her termination] was absolutely shocking for AJ. She is devastated,”

Really? I find that very hard to believe. If you hate a company so much you're
willing to SUE them and make it public, then these two things seem
irreconcilable.

~~~
krainboltgreene
> It's not a 100% merit-based system anymore.

This was never the case, at any point, ever.

~~~
mcbruiser3
any system involving humans will be flawed, but I don't think the problems
being discussed here are as rampant as some would like to think

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abhorrant
_Therese Lawless, Vandermeyden’s attorney_

Now that's a career name.

~~~
hkmurakami
Nominative determinism at work perhaps?

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falcolas
Moral of the story: If you sue your employer in an at-will state, you're very
likely to be fired.

Now, the only winners will be the lawyers.

~~~
elbrian
She did not just sue her employer -- she gave interviews to news outlets,
touting unproven allegations.

Do you think that Tesla should continue to pay someone who is actively and
deliberately tarnishing their image, without giving them a chance to make
things right (if they were ever wrong to begin with)?

~~~
mulletbum
This is what I am not understanding why there is even a question about it. The
minute she went public, Tesla has the right to fire her. If they were
retaliating, she had the chance to do that internally. She could leave a paper
trail and let them have a chance to correct the problem.

I don't know why it is up to Tesla to keep an employee trying to tarnish their
image.

~~~
falcolas
> The minute she went public, Tesla has the right to fire her.

Technically (and tangentally), they had the "right" from the moment she signed
her contract. That's what at-will means - Tesla can fire an employee with no
reason whatsoever should it wish. In theory, that power is balanced against an
employee's right to quit without notice; but the balance of power is not
really with the employee in that change.

> she had the chance to do that internally

Playing the devil's advocate for a moment, it sounds like she tried to do
exactly that - resolve it internally - and it didn't work out: her allegations
were classified as "unfounded." This means her options for resolving the issue
internally were practically exhausted.

~~~
xadhominemx
> That's what at-will means - Tesla can fire an employee with no reason
> whatsoever should it wish.

That is not true at all.

~~~
falcolas
I give you Wikipedia:

> in which an employee can be dismissed by an employer for any reason [...],
> and without warning.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/At-
will_employment](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/At-will_employment)

~~~
xadhominemx
Read a little further down the page: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/At-
will_employment#Statutory_e...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/At-
will_employment#Statutory_exceptions)

~~~
falcolas
Which means that Tesla would have to indicated that the termination was in
retaliation to the reporting of the harassment. It doesn't sound (to my non-
lawyer ears) like it did.

But that's now between the lawyers and the courts.

~~~
dragonwriter
No, the prohibition on termination for unlawful cause does not only apply when
the employer _admits_ the unlawful cause.

------
jroseattle
I was once part of a case of alleged sexual harassment at a large tech
company. I had worked closely with both the accuser and the accused and was
interviewed multiple times as a witness.

The scenario: we were working on a prototype project that would yield
preferential standards for implementation around a certain set of components.
Our team consisted of 7 people. Roughly 2 months worth of effort, given the
systems involved. Our objective was to present a unified opinion for
implementation standards of said components, with everyone on the team
supporting the opinion. I was the lead engineer of the group, and we reported
to a VP/Eng.

At the conclusion of the project, we had evaluated multiple approaches as a
group and prepared to make a suggestion for presentation to the eng group as a
whole. In the process of doing so, one engineer pushed for an approach that
had been rejected by everyone on the team. Despite our reasons for rejection,
this engineer refused to advocate for another approach that the rest of the
team had coalesced around. We went to our VP for support, who agreed with the
findings of the rest of the team. Decision made, presentation made, and the
project is completed.

Two weeks later, I receive a call from an HR representative to schedule a
"deposition" (their words, but no lawyers involved.) They ask a ton of
questions, which progressively become more ambiguous.

    
    
      - "Have you observed anyone on the team making racial or sexist comments?"
      - "Is anyone on the team overtly driven by race, religion, gender, or a personal cause?"
      - "Have you observed anyone receiving preferential treatment on the team?"
      - "Have you noticed any problematic or contentious interactions across members of your team?"
    

It was difficult to answer definitively to these types of questions, but it
was completely intentional. The company was going out of it's way to assess
whether the accuser's claims held any merit. The company did find the
accuser's claims as meritless, but not without close examination from every
angle.

The accusation: the engineer complained they had been discriminated against by
the VP because of their gender, sexual orientation, and nationality. And the
proof, per the accuser, was that the engineer's suggested approach from our
project had been rejected. Oddly enough, the HR representative never asked me
about that aspect.

One thing I learned from that experience is that public commentary about
harassment situations isn't so simple as it is often described.

------
nickpinkston
Side note: "Therese Lawless, Vandermeyden’s attorney"

A lawyer named "Lawless" in real life.

It's like there could actually be a Dewey, Cheetham, and Howe LLP

~~~
rocky1138
It's like an ice cream guy named Cone.

~~~
sslayer
Actually, wouldn't it be like an ice cream guy named Melted?

------
J-dawg
Does anyone else wonder why this is getting so much media attention?
Presumably any company above a certain size is likely to have one or two HR-
related lawsuits happening at any particular time. I can't imagine this being
big news if she worked for IBM or HP. They also shoehorned in an unrelated
story about worker safety.

What is the Guardian's agenda here? Is it just that Tesla (and Musk) are very
high profile at the moment? I'm not saying she doesn't have a legitimate
complaint, she may well do and that's for a court to decide. But this simply
wouldn't be news if it happened at a 'boring' company. (Well maybe The Boring
Company).

~~~
netcan
Well… the newsworthiness of any particular thing is pretty far removed from
the objective importance of the thing, for any definition of importance or
objectivity that don’t make the statement tautological. There was a comment
pile on on another thread when someone likened opioid addiction to terrorism,
because opioid addiction causes a hundred times more death and injury than
terrorism. Terrorism is more newsworthy though.

Almost any article about HP or IBM is less newsworthy than one about Tesla,
atm.

~~~
J-dawg
Point taken. I was just hoping that someone could shed some light on exactly
_why_ it's newsworthy.

It feels like there's a kind of schadenfreude at play, like people are
delighted to see that an innovative 'new' company has any problems at all.
Nobody would be the slightest bit interested in knowing if (say) Toyota had
workplace accident rates 30% above average.

Or, (putting the tinfoil hat on), there's a PR 'submarine' at play here and
someone stands to gain from rubbishing Tesla.

------
CJefferson
This sounds terrible for Tesla in many directions. Either she is right, in
which case Tesla sounds very bad. Alternatively, Tesla is completely right
(which I personally don't believe), in which case as they confess that :
"Vandermeyden had been granted numerous positions “over other more qualified
candidates” and was “given special treatment and opportunities for advancement
that were unwarranted based on her qualifications”."

~~~
rootusrootus
Most companies would refuse to comment on a situation like this, especially
one that is high profile. Based on Tesla's willingness to make such an
incendiary public statement, I'm guessing they have a big pile of
documentation to back it up.

I agree that they probably just opened themselves up to other legitimate
lawsuits. Oops.

~~~
taeric
Funny, a guess could also be that they have an entitlement complex and expect
to just be believed.

I'm honestly not sure which I expect to be the case. :(

------
whitemale
> In a statement to the Guardian, Tesla confirmed the company had fired
> Vandermeyden, saying it had thoroughly investigated the employee’s
> allegations with the help of a “a neutral, third-party expert” and concluded
> her complaints were unmerited.

> “Despite repeatedly receiving special treatment at the expense of others, Ms
> Vandermeyden nonetheless chose to pursue a miscarriage of justice by suing
> Tesla and falsely attacking our company in the press,” a Tesla spokesperson
> said. “After we carefully considered the facts on multiple occasions and
> were absolutely convinced that Ms Vandermeyden’s claims were illegitimate,
> we had no choice but to end her employment at Tesla.”

She tried to bully people utilising identity politics, the company got fed up
and fired here. Too bad Tesla didn't also sue her back, it's a real shame that
criminals like herself can get away with it, just because they are women. This
encourages women to start weaponizing sexual harassment claims, they can gain
a lot by bullying a company, yet they have nothing to lose.

------
rebootthesystem
> Tesla added that Vandermeyden had been granted numerous positions over other
> more qualified candidates and was given special treatment and opportunities
> for advancement that were unwarranted based on her qualifications

Wow, they should not have made that statement. Why was she given these
opportunities? Was there a sexual element? If those who were more qualified
get a whiff of this they might have a pretty good case purely based on this
statement of fact. I am not a lawyer but have dealt with enough legal crap to
know you do not make statements like that. I cringe to think that a lawyer
advised them to say this or was OK with making such a statement.

As for the merits of the case. Don't have a clue. That's what court is for.

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samfisher83
Looking at her linkedin she went from an inside sales rep to a manufacturing
engineer. Her major is biology. Going from inside sales to Manufacturing
engineer without an engineering background seems weird.

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camus2
> Tesla added that Vandermeyden had been granted numerous positions “over
> other more qualified candidates” and was “given special treatment and
> opportunities for advancement that were unwarranted based on her
> qualifications”.

It makes Tesla look even worse, acknowledging that the only reason that person
got the job is that because she was a woman, a man wouldn't have gotten the
same job for the same qualifications.

~~~
jtms
No where in their statement do they say they based said special treatment on
gender - you assumed and added that.

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S_A_P
Ive worked for companies that have shorted me financially to the tune of high
5 figure sums. I have been passed over for promotions that were unfounded. I
quit, I didnt get lawyers involved. Suing would damage my reputation on the
job market. I cant endorse bad behavior, but what makes people expect that a
nuclear option wont have consequences, fair or unfair?

~~~
blackguardx
If every woman who was sexually harrassed just quit, the workplace environment
for women would still be like the '50s. Individuals have to make a stand for
better treatment for all.

~~~
iagovar
I'm not in the US but I sincerely doubt that harassment is that common.

~~~
jbooth
If 1% of guys are scumbags, and 5 days a year they really act like it, and you
play that out for 10 years.. most women could be harrassed at some point or
other even though 99% of guys are innocent.

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Grue3
This is the first time I heard of this. Wonder why the Uber story blew up so
much, but the Tesla one was pretty much ignored?

