[quote name='camoor']Stay classy Iowa[/QUOTE]
Hey, come on, we're not all bad. It was the Iowa Supreme Court which made Iowa one of the first states in the nation to recognize same sex marriage. Of course, in the next retention election 3 of the justices were then voted out but...
Hey, look at that, the majority opinion in this case was written by a former professor from my school.
Here's the full opinion
http://www.iowacourts.gov/Supreme_Court/Recent_Opinions/20121221/11-1857.pdf
I gotta say, I don't entirely disagree with the opinion. First off, this is a sexual discrimination claim, not a sexual harassment claim. Based on the facts, she may well have won a sexual harassment claim. With a sexual discrimination claim though, she has to show the only reason she was fired was because she was a woman, that doesn't take into consideration the attractiveness of the person being subjected to adverse action (a firing in this situation).
The most damaging aspect to her discrimination claim is that not only does the dentist only employ women (yeah, he's starting to sound like a dirtball, especially when coupled with the fact that he made more than the comments in the article) but he also replaced the terminated woman with another woman.
If it's any consolation, the court doesn't seem to like having to rule the way they did. "Title VII and the Iowa Civil Rights Act are not general fairness laws, and an employer does not violate them by treating an employee unfairly so long as the employer does not engage in discrimination based upon the employee's protected stated."
Essentially, at issue in this case is that sexual discrimination laws are written to be essentially a yes/no analysis. Was the discrimination based on sex? yes/no It should, on the other hand, be written to the effect of was the discrimination based on an
aspect of sexual identity?
This is essentially the same reason why in most states and under federal law it is completely legal to terminate someone for being homosexual or transgendered because usually termination based on these aspects boils down to whether they were terminated for being male or female.
Essentially, what I'm saying is that we should be more upset with gender discrimination laws (particularly federal law) for not taking into account aspects of sexual identity rather than the Iowa Supreme Court being cornered into ruling the way they did.
and knew it or were even aware of it somewhat, you would likely wear clothing to show it off, even at work.
