A dentist from Iowa has been found not guilty of sexual discrimination when he sacked his assistant for being attractive.
The Iowa Supreme Court ruled on Friday that the dentist, Dr James Knight, did not engage in unlawful gender discrimination when he fired his assistant Melissa Nelson, as he found her attractive and feared they might have an extramarital affair.
The seven justices, all male, threw out a gender discrimination lawsuit, saying that the dentist’s actions may have been unfair to the longtime female employee, but that his conduct did not amount to sex discrimination, according to C S Monitor.
The assistant was fired after the dentist’s wife concluded that the attractive employee had become a threat to the couple’s marriage.
The jealous spouse demanded the assistant be terminated.
Melissa worked for more than 10 years as a dental assistant for Knight, in Fort Dodge, Iowa. The two, who are both married with children, were friendly at work and allegedly began to engage in workplace banter and off-hours texting. Some of their private communications were highly personal and sexual in nature, according to the decision. Dr Knight said he sometimes told Nelson that she was wearing tight-fitting clothing that he found distracting.
At one point, according to a statement in the record made by Knight, Nelson commented about the infrequency of her sex life. The dentist said he responded to her: “That’s like having a Lamborghini in the garage and never driving it.”
Nelson denied ever flirting with the dentist or hinting at an intimate relationship with him. She said her clothing was not too revealing.
In a related development, a province in Indonesia has banned female secretaries. Rusli Habibie, the governor of Gorontalo province, said on Saturday that he had ordered his top staff to replace their female secretaries with men following a string of extra-marital affairs.
Source: Mumbai Mirror, Reuters
