According to a story from Bloomberg appearing in Business Day today by Susan Antilla the “shame of the Debrahlee ‘They Fired Me Because I Was Too Hot’ Lorenzana story is that it is the rare Wall Street gender discrimination case that gets the public’s attention. Yet Ms Lorenzana is making negligible efforts to exploit it on anyone’s behalf except her own”.
Ms Lorenzana is the former business banking officer at Citigroup who says she was fired in August due to gender discrimination. View or download the article Banker fired for being ‘too good looking’ where there is also a photo of the complainant. Alternatively go to the article in Business Day itself.
What is particularly interesting is a reference to the private justice system in Wall Street. Apparently a “condition of her getting that job at Citi was that she agree to forego the court system if she had a gripe”. In other words she waived or forfeited the right to refer any dispute to any court. Generally speaking in the USA there is no right to be fairly dismissed because of the EAW (employment at will) doctrine. But there is statutory protection for employees who allege that they have been discriminated against.
The article seems to suggest that it is permissible to ‘contract out’ of that protection. If that is so employers can exploit the system of private justice by ensuring that disputes are resolved by persons well disposed to them. It was for that reason many years ago a number of prominent arbitrators in the USA adopted a Protocol relating to private dispute resolution and agreed not to accept any appointment unless the agreement to refer disputes to a private system complied strictly with the requirements of the Protocol.