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General News    H3'ed 9/9/09

Would a University Fire Employees to Cover Its Own Ass?

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Roger Shuler
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"Oh, he treats all of us terribly."

The lawyer had to suppress a laugh. "Ma'am, your problem is that you work for a jerk. But you don't have a discrimination case."

In so many words, one defense to a discrimination case is to say, "Hey, we didn't discriminate against Joe. We treat everybody like crap--regardless of race, gender, age, or what have you."

It sounds absurd, but such a defense might actually gain some traction in court. Could UAB be trying to fashion such a defense, way after the fact, in my case?

Consider the recent layoffs: It included men and women, covering the gender base; it included people over 40 and under 40, covering the age base; it covered my old group, Periodicals, but also included folks from the other groups, making it look like an across-the-board "lay off."

And get this: By nailing Doug Gillett, they got rid of the most obvious comparator on my age and First Amendment claim. As I've reported before, Doug had actually blogged and conducted political activities at work, a clear violation of university policy and probably state law. He was about 25 at the time, and received only a warning--which I fully supported; Doug's a great guy who didn't mean any harm, and I was pleased that he was not fired.

I, on the other hand, did not blog at work, according to UAB's own witness at my grievance hearing--and did not violate any policy. But I was 51 at the time, and I got canned.

So try to wrap your mind around this question: Did UAB recently cheat seven people out of their jobs in an effort to cover its ass for the unlawful behavior in my case?

"Ridiculous," you might say. I would tend to agree, in theory. Such a scheme should have no impact on my case. For one, I imagine case law frowns on after- the-fact efforts to paper over discrimination. Two, I was terminated, as opposed to a layoff for budgetary reasons, so there is no comparison between the two outcomes--no matter how UAB might try to spin it. I doubt that a layoff even is considered an "adverse job action" under the law; a termination most certainly is.

But in the real world, I've seen UAB take desperate and absurd steps when it has no defense in a discrimination case. In the Seema Gupta case, I saw an attempted cover up that would have made Richard Nixon proud.

If the EEOC manages to complete its investigation of my case in this lifetime, and I am able to proceed with a lawsuit, it will be interesting to see if UAB tries to use these layoffs as some kind of warped defense for its discriminatory actions against me. If it does, that would indicate that these weren't truly "layoffs" at all; they were simply an ugly and despicable legal ploy.

At one time, I would have said that UAB wouldn't be capable of firing seven people just to cover its own ass. But with the current administration . . . I wouldn't put much of anything past them.

On A Related Subject:

Some Strange Wheels Are Turning At An Alabama University


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I live in Birmingham, Alabama, and work in higher education. I became interested in justice-related issues after experiencing gross judicial corruption in Alabama state courts. This corruption has a strong political component. The corrupt judges are (more...)
 
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