Report about Nationwide discriminating against a breastfeeding woman is complete BS.

Warning: this is LONG…it’s mainly a rant about an irresponsible “news story”, but also addresses the facts of lawsuit behind the story – that the U.S. Supreme Court declined to hear a petition to overturn a lower court’s ruling that a breastfeeding mother was not discriminated against and could not sue her employer. (note that the Supreme Court didn’t rule on this in any way – they elected not to hear it based on the statements and facts of the petition and lower court judgments).  So, don’t feel like you have to read this.  I spent way to much time reading the court documents, other articles, and ridiculous reader comments, that I have to address this so I can get it out of my head.  Feel free to stop reading now – and know that the Supreme Court did not allow discrimination against a breastfeeding mother.  A breastfeeding mother quit her job on her own accord, and then claimed she was forced to resign – and thus was actually fired.

I got fired up about a headline I read today, and then I got fired up at how the headline and article was only loosely based in truth and was attempting to mislead and piss people off.  I assume that it was just an attempt to get a ton of page hits and social media shares…and unfortunately most people who did so, probably didn’t bother to “really” read the article – which was highly one-sided. I’m especially sure that most people didn’t bother to read the court documents, which clear up some of the misrepresentations of truth.

The publisher RawStory clearly realized how ridiculous their story was, because they edited it (and the headline) extensively between the time I first read it, and now.  Initially, the headline was “Supreme Court lets stand ruling that firing woman for breastfeeding not sexist because men can lactate” (this is completely inaccurate and the ruling that the Supreme Court allowed to stand had nothing to do with men lactating, nor was this anywhere in the case file presented to them.  They later changed the headline to “Woman out of appeals after trial court says her firing for breastfeeding not sexist since men can lactate”.  So at least they removed the Supreme Court from the ruling – however, the ruling STILL had nothing to do with men lactating.  Their “correction statement” even proves this, but they left up the inflammatory headline about men lactating anyway:

Correction: A previous version of this article incorrectly stated that the Eighth Circuit Court’s decision claimed men could lactate. That language was included in the district court’s decision, not the circuit court ruling. The Eighth Circuit upheld the lower court’s decision on other grounds.

They did uphold on other grounds – the case was dismissed because “she didn’t take sufficient steps to complain internally before writing her letter of resignation”.   Perhaps the stupid male lactation thing was also  mentioned in the opinion, but in no way is that what the decision hinged on.

Here are some things I wrote down earlier today, before they edited the initial story and headline.

The headline is just an attention-grabber and isn’t actually what the decision is based on.  And that kind of sucks and gets people all riled up and believing that our country is actually against breastfeeding – and this isn’t the case.  Breastfeeding supporters are always ready to pounce and become outraged as soon as someone is perceived to be questioning, preventing, or otherwise insulting the act of breastfeeding.  I get that – because it’s a personal decision that women make for the health and wellness of their own babies and themselves – no one has as right to question that or prevent that.  I don’t question or block someone’s 4^th trip to the vending machine during work hours.  Unfortunately many people completely believe stupid headlines and react excessively without reading any back story or legal documents – and they share it with anyone who will listen, so thus it perpetuates the divide between breastfeeding supporters and “everyone else”. 

So headlines like this “breastfeeding women fired because men can lactate” is just to sensationalize and take advantage of that divide.  At first I was like “what the hell!” and posted on FB that apparently men can lactate so future mothers should make the fathers do it so they can get some sleep (haha…).  But it pisses me when things are presented as a news report when they are only one-sided, and I felt like the few versions of this were leaving some things out, so I pulled up some of the court documents and dug further. Most people aren’t going to bother doing and research and just believe that the story is true and our US Supreme Court sucks (remember, most of the people read this story when it was still referring to that court.  Court documents can be hard to read and follow – lots of jargon that most aren’t familiar with.  I happen have 10+ years of experience of reading court documents daily, so it was pretty easy for me to wade through.  I went straight to the opinion of the 8th Circuit, which summarizes both parties claims and applies the laws to the claims.  I also later read the petition filed at the Supreme Court and the supporting documents.  So after reading these, I determined that the headline should be “US Supreme Court denies to consider the ruling that woman was not fired or forced to resign for breastfeeding”  Not as catchy or attention-grabbing right? Yeah, it’s a non-story…as it should be.

As far as the men lactating thing – it’s irrelevant and was not part of the Supreme Court consideration.  It was something that was said by the district court and was not considered, affirmed, or denied by the Supreme Court because that was not what they were ruling on – they wouldn’t have even seen that statement.  A plaintiff must show that she gave the employer reasonable chance to review and address the situation that allegedly brought about the constructive discharge, and she did not do that. When she filed with the Supreme Court, she was seeking for them to overrule the precedent of constructive discharge.  Also, the men lactating thing was NOT what the decision of any of the courts was based on – just something (stupid) that was said in the district court – so is an additional reason it’s an irresponsible headline that is aimed to piss a bunch of people off and get a ton of traffic and shares. 

Here’s the summary…

Angela Ames sued Nationwide, alleging sex and pregnancy discrimination. Her complaint asserted that the unavailability of a lactation room, “her urgent need to express milk,” and Nationwide’s “unrealistic and unreasonable expectations about her work production” forced her to resign from her position.

The courts dismissed Angela’s case saying that she didn’t allow the company reasonable time to give her accommodations or take sufficient steps to complain internally before writing her letter of resignation – even though her supervisor suggested that she “go home to be with her babies” and encouraged her to resign to do so – and therefore, she wasn’t really fired.   She says that she was forced out, but they did try to accommodate her even though they couldn’t give her an immediate solution.  Even if she had access to the lactation room, if someone else was using it, or there was a line for it, she wouldn’t have been able to pump immediately in that situation either.  The wellness room was occupied, so was advised to return in 15-20 minutes to see if it was available at that time.  She never went back to check on the room, and instead she wrote and signed a letter of resignation.  It appears that she then filed the lawsuit instead of filing an appeal or trying to come to an agreement or settlement with HR of Nationwide, which would have been the first rational step. 

“To prove a constructive discharge, an employee must show that the employer deliberately created intolerable working conditions with the intention of forcing her to quit.” Alvarez v. Des Moines Bolt Supply, Inc., 626 F.3d 410, 418 (8th Cir. 2010). “In addition, an employee must give her employer a reasonable opportunity to resolve a problem before quitting.” Sanders v. Lee Cnty. Sch. Dist. No. 1, 669 F.3d 888, 893 (8th Cir. 2012).

Here are the reasons Ames gives that show that her employer was trying to force her to quit, along with my commentary in paranthesis:

• First, Neel (dept. director) and Brinks (supervisor) made negative statements regarding Ames’s pregnancies (harassment, probably…but take it to HR – and the statements made were not extreme).
• Second, Nationwide miscalculated the length of Ames’s maternity leave, and Neel insisted that she return to work early or risk raising red flags (miscalculations do happen – it wouldn’t have been done on purpose and she was told about it over a month before returning. She was also told that she could take unpaid leave, though it could raise red flags – but ALL unpaid leave raises red flags with any company, so that’s not unreasonable to make that statement.  They also extended her leave by an additional week to help accommodate for the error, so it seems she ended up having to return just 10 work days earlier than she was originally told.  Plus this was all resolved a month before her return).
  
• Third, Nationwide trained Angie Ebensberger to fill Ames’s position during Ames’s maternity leave. (I don’t know what this has to do with being treated unfairly)
• Fourth, Ames was not given immediate access to a lactation room and was told that she had to wait three days for badge access. (this is company policy and ALL women had to do this. This means her badge wouldn’t let her in the locked rooms…that she would have to be let in the room instead.  This makes sense because you don’t want everyone to have badge access so that ANYONE could use/abuse the availability of these rooms – especially in a large company.  They are trying to restrict the use to people who would need it, and that kind of thing probably takes more than 2 hours to complete paperwork (to verify need) and go through the chain of command to add the badge (this is true in my company).  Security was told to give her expedited access, but she quit before this could happen – there is an email that proves this.  Remember – it’s Nationwide….not sure how big the branch was that she was working at, but most are large – you can’t just expect security or the nurse to anticipate that she’d need the lactation room upon return.  There was a nursing room policy available online, as well as quarterly maternity meetings that would have advised her of the requirements for using the room.  Part of the three day wait also included obtaining access to a scheduling system that allowed women to schedule the rooms when they needed them.  NO ONE could just walk in to work at 8 a.m. and demand a lactation room – there was a well-documented system in place to make the room usage fair for everyone, and she didn’t bother to learn about the system.  The nurse told her that she could let her in a room until she was in the system, but that non were available at that time.  She was also told she could use the wellness room, which happened to be occupied at that moment, and was asked to check back in 15-20 minutes.  Remember, she quit approx. 2 hours after she arrived (her statements said she hadn’t nursed for 3 hours when she arrived, and later that it had been 5 hours since she had last expressed breastmilk when she signed her resignation – thus 2 hours, give or take, after her shift.  She expected a large company with a widely-available, well documented policy that she didn’t bother read or research, to drop everything to accommodate her needs within 2 hours, despite that she wasn’t the only lactating women who was in need of these rooms.
  
• Fifth, Brinks told Ames that none of her work had been completed while she was on maternity leave, that she had to work overtime to get caught up, and that if she did not catch up, she would be disciplined. (he denies this statement and said that he couldn’t force anyone to work overtime, nor was she behind on her work. Even if either of their stories are half true, it’s an HR issue).
• Sixth, Neel did nothing to assist Ames in finding a place to lactate and instead told Ames, “I think it’s best that you go home to be with your babies.” (It wouldn’t be her director’s responsibility to find a place for her to pump.  The statement of going home to be with her babies doesn’t force her to resign – if anything, she should have assumed that meant she should leave for the day, or for a few hours. If it was insensitive or harassing, she should have reported it to HR.  If her supervisor told her to kill herself, no one would expect her to comply, thus why would she immediately agree to quit when the supervisor recommended it.  Also, the supervisor denies telling her to quit – there is no proof either way). 
• And seventh, at the time Ames resigned, it had been more than five hours since she had last expressed milk and she was in considerable physical pain (she arrived to work 3 hours after having last expressed milk..that is her fault.  She could have pumped immediately before leaving for work. She shouldn’t have expected to be able to pump immediately after arriving at work.  The law requires reasonable accommodations for breastfeeding, which the nurse was trying to arrange.  She quit within 2 hours of arriving at work, and having only asked 2 people for assistance and not returning to see if the temporary solution given to her was now available, nor did she go to HR.
  

My thoughts behind it may sound harsh, but I DO have sympathy for her.  She was probably an emotional wreck and in a lot of pain.  Returning to work after having a baby is an incredibly rough thing – it was one of the hardest days of my life.  But you don’t make a rash decision of resigning.  If anything, you leave for the day and accept discipline for doing so.  It’s not Nationwide’s fault that she made that choice.  If they fired her for leaving for the day, then she’d have an argument that she WAS fired.  Or if you do resign and realize that wasn’t the right choice, you go back to HR and try to work it out, instead of immediately filing a lawsuit. You can’t later blame someone else for your irrational actions.

As someone with a court background, I have to base my opinion on the facts of the case, and they are not in her favor.  She signed a letter of resignation and she didn’t give the company time to help her find a solution or go to HR. So my real PSA is KNOW YOU RIGHTS and stick up for yourself. Consider it as advocating for your baby.  Life is hard, you can’t just quit when things don’t go your way and then say that you were forced to.

So I’m pissed…but not at the lawsuit.  I’m pissed that the writers of the “story” portrayed everything so irresponsibly in order to incite an extreme and immediate response.  It preys on the fear that women have about job security when starting and juggling a family…it preys on the divide between lactation activists and everyone else, and it preys on the “us versus them” divide of the government versus the people.  It just sucks.  Their story and intent sucked so bad that they changed it.  This is how they describe who they are:

“Raw Story is an independent news site that focuses on stories often ignored in the mainstream media. In addition to giving coverage to the top stories of the day, we also bring our readers’ attention to policy, politics, legal and human rights stories that get ignored in an infotainment culture driven solely by pageviews.”

So they claim they bring attention to stories that get ignored by other sources because those sources are driven solely by pageviews….and then they publish this piece of garbage with was clearly (especially before corrections were made) driven by pageviews and intended to incite anger, fear, and outrage.  No that you Raw Story – you are a raw piece of garbage.