Tuesday, June 13, 2006
"We hired you at a size C and now you're a [expletive] D!... You need to lose those boobs now!"
So allegedly said production stage manager Eric Sprotsy to one of his dancers, Alice Alyse, for the Billy Joel-inspired muscial Movin' Out.
Ann Althouse, based on an Washington Post article, describes in much detail the various background facts that led Alyse to sue for $100 million dollars the producers of the show, as well as a number of other officials, including Sprotsy, all for sexual harassment and wrongful dismissal.
Of course, this is a serious case with all sorts of interesting aspects to consider, such as whether having smaller breasts is a bfoq for being a Broadway dancer and whether such adverse employment actions constitutes gender stereotype discrimination or whether this is just another non-discriminatory appearance code case like the one recently examined by the en banc Ninth Circuit in the Jespersen casino case.
It may be all this, but as Althouse points out, the Washington Post piece is filled with choice quotes, including:
"It's a virtue to have bigger breasts on Broadway, in my expert opinion," Klayman[, Alyse's well-known attorney] observes one balmy evening, over dinner with Alyse at a seaside restaurant called Bongos.
And Billy Joel himself, not a party to the suit, chiming in and protesting that:
Under no circumstances would I ever have anyone fired for having breasts that were too large.
Well, as I always say to my students when teaching employment discrimination law, you just can't make this stuff up and truth is stranger than fiction.
PS
https://lawprofessors.typepad.com/laborprof_blog/2006/06/we_hired_you_at.html
I think the headline for this post is problematic. By using the quote as such, the same subordinating/objectifying effect felt by the person to whom it was directed may be repeated with regard to the female users of this site. It's fine to feature the case and possibly even the quotes, but it doesn't feel right to use this particular quote as a post heading.
Posted by: lbc | Jun 13, 2006 12:37:47 PM