VP of playgirl fired for being Republican?

I have heard that the Vice President may have been fired for being republican. I dont know the details and wondered if anyone else had any information on it.

Also do you think someone should be fired for there political affiliation? Would it be ok in certian circumstances?

i don't think its right at all. it doesnt make sense, unless they said "you will be fired if you cross over, bitch!"

absolutely wrong.

Id love to here some info on it. I wonder if Playgirl gave another reason.

Sorry it was a former editor

[Edited on Mar 22, 2005 by InfernoMDM]

They said they were not happy with her re-design. They also said that Ms. Zipp wasnt fired for her politics.

Ms. Zipp had someone who wouldnt work (a contributer) for a Republican, and once Ms. Zipp was fired the contributer came back. Also one of Ms. Zipp's bosses joking said that he wouldnt have hired her if he had known she was a republican.

She also stated that she choose to vote "red" due to issues, and doesnt always vote republican just because.

Also she stated the article she wrote was a tougn and cheek article to be light hearted and bring politics into the bedroom in a fun way. She also wanted to poke at the steryotypes of both Deomcrats and Republicans.

Well, people get fired for all sorts of reasons that are fucked up, but not necessarily illegal. You can get fired for the color of your socks and it's perfectly acceptible.

You can't be fired for being one of the protected groups under Title VII, the ADA, and the ADEA. Actually, I think there's one more federal statute, but I'm too lazy to look it up. Basically, it boils down to this: You can't be fired for race, sex, religion, age, national origin, or disability.

It's also important to note that even though the GOVERNMENT can't punish someone for their political beliefs (or at least theoretically shouldn't be able to), the First Amendment does not apply to private citizens or to private employers.

well, if she decided to sue and won, wouldn't that set some sort of precedent for future conflicts like this? like having political affiliation added to the ADA list or something?

Ha! Does that mean we get to permanently define being a Republican as a disability?

If she won it would totally set a bad precedent which would likely be overturned. I can't imagine any court reading "political affiliation" into any federal legislation which does not actually mention it. Likely the court would not be inclined to substitute its judgment for Congress' where Congress clearly had the opportunity to make "political affiliation" a protected ground, but chose not to. Whether "political affiliation" SHOULD be a protected ground is a totally debatable, and potentially quite reasonable, but the fact that it IS NOT a protected ground is pretty clear.

Haha. On that note, this is pretty funny.

[Edited on Mar 22, 2005 by dead_ringer]

It is in my mind.

*snicker*

is that the case? when they were deciding the disability provisions, did they have the option to protect against political discrimination and they decided not to? i'm genuinely curious...and lazy.

Well, perhaps not in the ADA, but surely if Congress wanted "political affiliation" to be protected in the employment context, it could have included something to that effect in Title VII or some other similar legislation.

I don't know if it's been discussed. I imagine it was. Congress tends to throw a bunch of shit at the wall in the legislation process to see if it sticks. Regardless, I can't see how it is connected to the disability provisions any more than it would be connected to the provisions against religious or racial discrimination.

Congress (nearly) always has the option to do whatever it wants. All that matters is what they end up doing and whether or not the Constitution says they can. They clearly had the option to protect against political discrimination in the drafting of Title VII, the ADA and the ADEA. They didn't. A court would likely construe that as evidencing that Congress intended not to protect against it. They would then save the Constitutional issue of whether they were able to protect against political discrimination for a later time after Congress actually took that step.

(how much do you want to bet that dead_ringer will have a better explanation of this by the time I post this comment?)

it just seems interesting that this hasn't come up before. i realize the exceptions for private employers and all, but in this sue-at-the-drop-of-a-hat culture of ours, you would think someone would have tried to make some buckage off of this before now.

They probably have. But any court would throw it out for lack of a claim.

I think many state's have constitutional and/or statutory provisions prohibiting employment discrimination based on political affiliation. As such, she may have a claim in state court, depending on where the hell she lives and where Playgirl is incorporated.

Oh yeah. What he said. What I said is true for federal law, but I should have specified that state-to-state laws vary quite a bit.

All kidding aside, it probably is something that's worth protecting. It's not the sort of thing that would be hard to get bipartisan support for either, since it's the sort of thing members of either party can do.

What about state or municipal additions to the ADA? I don't really know procedurally how that works, but I remember living in San Francisco and hearing about plans to make overweight people a protected group who could sue for discrimination in hiring/firing practices, so do states and municipalities have more leeway in defining who is protected, provided their definitions don't conflict with the Federal ones?

Yeah, as long as the state isn't preempted by federal law, it can broaden the number of protected classes. New York is similar to California in the respect that it has taken it upon its self to include more classes. Where it gets tricky is where a local government (city or county) tries to broaded the scope of state protections. It is generally accepted that municipalities serve at the pleasure of the state which created them. As such, state courts often have to figure out if local governments were granted authority by the state to expand on a given state rule. I think the trend these days tends to be in favor of local govts. having more expansive powers unless state constitutions or statutes specifically prohibit such expansion, provided of course, that the locality has a legitimate local interest and it is not constricting the rights enumerated by the state. This is what is knows as "home rule."

Edited to add that I agree that it is odd that political affiliation is not a protected grounds from employment discrimination. I imagine Congress considered it, but that it felt that the courts may have a tough time figuring out what actual legitimate political affiliations are, the same way they have problems figuring out free exercise of religion claims sometimes. Courts generally hate it when they are put in the position of making a value judgment as to the legitimacy of things like "political affiliation." There's almost no way to NOT inject ideology into figuring that kind of thing out.

[Edited on Mar 22, 2005 by dead_ringer]

I hope this becomes a big deal, if only because I want to see people like O'Reilly and Limbaugh talking about Playgirl ad nauseum .

I think we should go out there, and win just one....for the Zipper.

my, you are a clever one...