Witch Hunt

Inside Higher Ed reported Friday, based on an article in the Lincoln Journal Star, that “the University of Nebraska at Lincoln has agreed to pay $40,000 to a former employee who says she was fired after the university learned that she is a witch.”

The Journal Star reported that the plaintiff, identified only as Jane Doe,

said she took a job with the university in 2007 directing a youth program.

But an associate dean terminated her, despite her satisfactory performance at work, after learning she was a witch and her religion was “Reclaiming Tradition of Witchcraft,” the woman alleged.

Jane Doe — believing UNL had violated her right to free speech and expression and exercise of religion — filed a complaint with the Nebraska Equal Opportunity Commission.

She said the NEOC found reasonable cause to believe religious discrimination had taken place.

That led to the lawsuit, first filed in Lancaster County District Court and later transferred to U.S. District Court. In it, she sought the reinstatement of her job, lost wages and benefits, and punitive damages.

Senior Judge Warren Urbom entered the judgment in the federal court Wednesday.

The University of Nebraska, of course, admitted no wrongdoing in this matter —

The university made the offer “solely to compromise the claim … without admitting the validity of plaintiff’s contention or any allegations of wrongdoing by the defendants,” attorney David Buntain said…

— but I think this controversy raises other important questions that have not been asked. For starters, just how many witches are there at the University of Nebraska? Does the University of Nebraska know? If it doesn’t, shouldn’t it?

Readers of DISCRIMINATIONS will recall that officials of the University of Nebraska adamantly opposed the Nebraska Civil Rights Initiative, which passed with 58% of the vote, claiming that it would destroy “diversity.” But if they really value “diversity,” wouldn’t those university officials determine whether or not witches are “underrepresented” there? And if they are either “underrepresented,” wouldn’t they be obligated by their own professed values to take affirmative action to correct the problem? (Of course, if witches turn out to be “overrepresented,” then I’m sure the university officials are clever enough to establish witch-neutral “goals” that would operate as a de facto quota until the optimum balance is reached.)

Oh, wait, you might say. Doesn’t the new law produced by the Nebraska Civil Rights Initiative —

(1) The state shall not discriminate against, or grant preferential treatment to, any individual or group on the basis of race, sex, color, ethnicity, or national origin in the operation of public employment, public education, or public contracting

— itself prevent the university from discriminating in favor of or against … witches, since all witches are women?

I will leave that to the lawyers (Roger, are you there?), but will note in passing that any concern on that front could be diminished, or perhaps even eliminated, if the university engaged in affirmative action for both witches and warlocks.

ADDENDUM

Questions about the rights of witches could, perhaps, be profitably directed to the Witches Protection Project — a “Group spreading word about civil rights of witches” — in Salem, Massachusetts, where they presumably know something about witches.