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Tesla Fires Female Engineer Who Alleged Sexual Harassment (theguardian.com)
Tesla has fired a female engineer who accused the company of ignoring her complaints of sexual harassment and paying her less than her male counterparts. AJ Vandermeyden, who went public with her discrimination lawsuit against Tesla in February, was dismissed from the company this week. The Guardian reports: Vandermeyden had claimed she was taunted and catcalled by male employees and that Tesla failed to address her complaints about the harassment, unequal pay and discrimination. "It's shocking in this day and age that this is still a fight we have to have," she said at the time. 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 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."
+1 Bingo
Just because she says or thinks she is harassed or paid less doesn't make that true. And to make it a media circus doesn't help the situation. No doubt there are PLENTY of people who do this now just to get what they want. It is a shame because there are legit issues that need to be addressed at places that will get overlooked when things are made-up by others and found to be unjustified.
We might actually get to hear all the nitty gritty details on this one, rather than the usual handful of accusations in the press followed by the company settling the lawsuit with a gag clause. If Tesla's lawyers think they're on firm enough ground to fire her after she filed suit, they must also think they're on extremely firm ground regarding the suit itself, in which case they should fight it out to a conclusion. Which is damn rare. We're going to get an unusually detailed look at the HR practices of a billion dollar company. Should be fascinating.
I wonder what the market will think of it tomorrow... Their stock hit a new 52 week high today of $344.88. Which happens to also be an all-time high. The previous high was $342.89.
In the US, as long as someone makes a good-faith claim of discrimination, you are legally protected against retaliation in the form of any kind of adverse job action. Firing someone would be the ultimate adverse job action, but it could be as little as giving them a verbal warning. The catch comes in that you have to file a complaint with state and or federal agencies, which are often overworked and understaffed to the point where if you don't have a smoking gun in terms of evidence, they're likely not going to do anything more than sit on your case.
In this instance, the woman skipped all that and went right to a lawsuit (which is an option). However, she's still protected against retaliation unless Tesla can show that her complaint was made in bad faith.Your claim of discrimination doesn't actually have to be proven correct to be given the protection against retaliation, it only has to be made in good-faith. Good-faith, defined in the US legal system basically amounts to you believe it to be the case, and usually have some kind of evidence to support your belief. Based on the reports, this woman definitely has some examples to support her claim, so it's on Tesla to prove that the woman knew it was not true when she made the complaint(s).
Tesla is playing an extremely dangerous game by firing the woman. Unless they have some hard proof that she made the entire thing up, her lawyer will file a retaliation suit in addition to the discrimination suit and it won't be a question of IF Tesla pays out, but HOW MUCH.
The investigator had access to Tesla’s compensation data and found that Vandermeyden’s salary was in the middle of the range and while some new hires were indeed paid more than her as her lawsuit claims, the highest paid new hire was a woman and several men were paid less than her. Therefore, Hilbert determined that gender discrimination had nothing to do with her compensation.
It doesn't say why she was fired, but most companies won't say that.
"First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
"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."
I know it's not a popular opinion in this day and age, but cat-calling is also just banter. Take it in stride.
Religion is what happens when nature strikes and groupthink goes wrong.