It's Not Easy Being A Witch

An employee with a bus company for a Minnesota school district alleges that she was fired for being a witch with pagan religious beliefs.  Of course, it didn't help that her former companion, who was running for governor as a vampire, had a platform of improving education, giving tax breaks to farmers, and publicly impaling terrorists, rapists and drug dealers (I had previously posted about this story here).

There is actually an interesting employment law question lurking in this case.  Julie Carpenter, the former companion of the vampire, claims she was fired for impermissible religious reasons because of her pagan beliefs. The school district points out that she was not an employee of the school district, but of the bus company and thus, cannot be sued. However, Carpenter's attorney released a letter showing that the school district asked the bus company to release the bus driver because she was a bad role model for the kids.

If these allegations are true, it may be that Carpenter can sue the school district as a joint employer under Title VII if the school district exercised adequate control over the school distrcit, vampires and witches notwithstanding.

And as far as the substance of the allegation, my friend Steve Befort of the University of Minnesota Law School rightly points out in this Associated Press article (we law professors get involved in some weird stories): "It's one thing to say you're not a proper role model because you're a vampire or a witch, and another thing to say it's really based upon a religious belief."

Hat Tip: Wasted Blog

PS