Debrahlee Lorenzana of Queens, N.Y. says managers at Citibank considered her turtlenecks and tailored pencil skirts “too distracting” and asked her to stop wearing them. When she said that other employees wore similar garb, per her court papers, she was told that wasn’t relevant “as their general unattractiveness rendered moot their sartorial choices, unlike plaintiff.” [NY Post] More: Ted at PoL citing earlier coverage of Lorenzana’s lawyer in this space; Above the Law.
Posts Tagged ‘sex discrimination’
May 24 roundup
- Pennsylvania attorney general subpoenas Twitter in search of critics’ identities, then backs down [Volokh and more, Levy/CL&P, Romenesko, Wired “Threat Level”]
- Letting kids have unsupervised time in NYC park not actually against the law [Free-Range Kids on “Take Your Kids to the Park, and Leave Them There Day”] Related from Lenore Skenazy: Spiked Online and Salon, “The War on Children’s Playgrounds”
- Uh-oh: New York chief judge Jonathan Lippman endorses massive new Civil Gideon legal-aid entitlement [ABA Journal, and the NYT cheers]
- “Novartis Hit With $250 Million in Punitives in Gender Bias Case” [NYLJ, WSJ Law Blog (blaming bad defense trial strategy) and more, ABA Journal, Hyman]
- Med-mal law has done very well for two attorney brothers in Georgia [Atlanta Journal-Constitution via Pero]
- Kagan’s Oxford thesis revealed: judges shouldn’t make it up as they go along in quest of social justice. Sensation ensues! [WSJ Law Blog, related on political-branch deference] And were the SG’s judicial-restraint principles activated by Graham v. Florida? [Stuart Taylor, Jr., National Journal]
- Federal Elections Commission as net regulator: “How the DISCLOSE Act will restrict free speech” [Brad Smith/Jeff Patch, Reason]
- “Law Professor Confesses ‘I’m a Criminal’” [Tim Lynch, Cato]
- Argentina: “Parts of Anti-Plagiarism Bill Lifted from Wikipedia” [Lowering the Bar, TechDirt]
U.K.: “Single mother soldier expecting a large payout from Army over discrimination claim”
“A single mother soldier is expecting to win a large payout from the Army after a tribunal ruled that it had failed to take enough notice of her childcare needs. … a tribunal ruled [Tilern DeBique] was within her rights to miss training [in Britain’s 10th Signal Regiment] when she could not find anyone to look after her daughter.” [Telegraph]
Gender gaps and asymmetry
At the University of Florida female students in the entering class now outnumber male by 3 to 2, and a spokesman matter-of-factly explains: “Girls are being admitted because they are doing the things to be admitted and boys aren’t.” Coyote accepts the statement as rational, but tries to imagine how it would have been received if all the facts were the same but the genders were reversed.
P.S. From the Manhattan Institute’s Minding the Campus, two new articles on the controversy over lesser female representation in science, technology, engineering and math: Susan Pinker, “On Women, STEM and Hidden Bias“, and John Rosenberg, “The Misguided Push for STEM Diversity.”
Harassment and sex-bias charges on campus
Tony Judt reflects on many bemused years in a history department, and commenters have their say [NY Review of Books Blog via Amy Alkon]
Loss-of-a-chance doctrine?
As part of a class action settlement agreeing to offer more same-sex date matching, eHarmony has allotted $500,000 to persons who can show they were harmed by its failure to offer it before. [San Francisco Chronicle, earlier]
Gender-equity cops are after the sciences
Warns Stuart Taylor, Jr. Earlier here, etc.
“Dell Agrees to Pay $9.1 Million in Discrimination Case”
MediaBistro’s AgencySpy wonders whether the computer maker’s relatively speedy settlement had anything to do with the circumstance that “one of the plaintiffs is a former female HR administrator”.
The exploits of Alfred Rava, cont’d
Bruce Nye at Cal Biz Lit has more on the California lawyer and his numerous sex-bias challenges to stadium Mother’s-Day events and the like (Jun. 12, etc.). A coupon settlement with $260,000 in attorney’s fees is mentioned.
Rick Reilly on the Oakland Mother’s Day-stadium suit
By reader acclaim: ESPN’s Rick Reilly is righteously hacked off at California serial litigator Alfred Rava and his sex discrimination settlement over an Oakland A’s breast cancer promotion which gave out floppy sun hats on Mother’s Day to women attending the game but not (horrors) to men. (“Make $100 the sleazy way“):
So how many guys have lined up to get their rightful floppy-hat-equivalent payment that was stolen from them by those selfish Mother’s Day-manipulating women? “Well, I haven’t taken a single call so far,” said the 1-888 operator at the firm handling claims. “And I’m here just about every day.”
Earlier coverage of Rava’s Oakland suit here, and on his earlier suit over an Anaheim Angels Mother’s Day tote bag giveaway here, here, here, and here.