Sexual Discrimination At Eastern Airlines

Judge John Grady presided over the case. Grady determined that Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 did include protection for people who have sexual identity issues, namely transsexuals. He then had to determine whether Karen had been discriminated against based on her sex as a woman. Eastern had had no complaints about Ulane prior to the operation. Eastern presented seven arguments in a brief defending their actions in firing her. They were: her "underlying psychological problem" presented a safety hazard to crew and passengers, her medical certification was conditional after surgery, her sex reassignment surgery did not solve her underlying problem, her presence would counter the airline's claim that airline traffic is safe to the public, she was not the same person they hired and they would not have hired her in the first place if they had known what they do now, she had not disclosed her condition and treatments to the company, and finally, she had instigated negative publicity for the airline. Each of the arguments was proven to have no factual base by Ulane's lawyers. They used examples of alcoholic pilots who did not disclose their conditions at hiring and when their conditions were discovered and treated were allowed to return to work. They proved substantially from the testimony of fellow pilots, doctors, and the FAA that Ulane was no more dangerous or unfit to fly than someone who is left-handed. They used the example of female employees who had posed for Playboy magazine to disprove that Ulane had brought enough negative publicity to fire her. The Judge determined that if she had not been a transsexual she would not have been fired and ordered that she be reinstated with back wages seniority. Interestingly the ruling was later overturned by a federal appeals court panel of three judges who decided that transsexuals and people with sexual identity disorders were not protected under the Civil Rights Act.