Sunday Morning Hot Tea - No. 18
What I Learned Getting Rid of My Pants and Firing Folks for Doing the No-Pants Dance
Welcome to Sunday Morning Hot Tea where I write about a little something up top then answer a legal question for you down below. This week – I cleaned out my closet and tossed my pants. Plus, lessons from financial expert (but not employment law expert) Dave Ramsey.
In this edition
Topic of the Week – Someday Today
Legal Question – Total Workplace Discrimination Makeover
TOPIC THIS WEEK: Someday Today
(TW: Eating disorders)
“Don’t go in there!” I hollered after my fiancé, Paris, as he headed into our bedroom. He didn’t listen, charging in to see four piles of clothes on our bed at least as high as his head.
“Making progress?” he asked.
“I have a system,” I said as he walked through the room and into the bathroom to find yet another pile.
Yes, I do have a system. But I also have a problem. A clothes problem. The fact is I just have too many of them because I never get rid of any.
We recently got a brand-new bed and mattress, which required me to clean out the under-bed drawers from our old bed. With those drawers now gone, and a closet already bursting with both Paris’s newly added clothes he brought in the move and my existing archive of every item I’ve owned since the year 2000, something had to be done.
One day after work, I stopped thinking about it and just started doing it. There are a lot of organization methods out there, currently the most trendy being KonMari/Marie Kondo and The Home Edit. In response to these powerhouses of getting your life in order, I have developed a few methods of my own that you are free to use. The first is the Stop Waiting to Fit into Clothes and Just Buy New Clothes That Fit You method. The next is the You’ve Held Onto That So Long That the Designer has Gone Out of Business and Had Enough Time to Later Reopen method. Finally I present to you the That Outfit is From the George W. Bush Administration, So You Have to Donate It Now method.
Among the many items sorted for donation, I found a brand new, never worn pair of jeans that I bought in the year god-knows-when. I would guess it was probably around 2004 when these jeans were in vogue. Not the magazine. These jeans were more likely to be seen in Us Weekly and People than Vogue. They’re Kitson brand, the favored label of Paris Hilton and Britney Spears when they weren’t sipping Starbucks in their Juicy Couture velour track suits.
I think I got them at Nordstrom Rack, just as the trend was on its downward swing. I didn’t fit into them at the time, but I had a lot of faith in myself. Someday I would fit into them, I vowed. Sure, they were about three sizes too small. Sure, I had no firm plans to exercise or eat fewer calories. Nevertheless, the jeans were a symbol of what I would be someday. Thinner, and by thinner, better.
They hung, unworn, on a hanger, first in my closet in Dallas, then in Chicago, then back in Dallas. They went with me between apartments and eventually to my house, hanging stalwart, tag still on, ever ready. They hung around longer than any romantic relationship, a reliable reminder as the years passed that my someday would come.
I kept a few other items, too. But unlike the Kitson jeans, these were items I had previously worn. Most treasured were my white shorts. In my family, we’d call them “coochie cutters”, but those in polite society may refer to them as short-shorts. They were Arizona brand, no doubt purchased from JC Penney, in juniors size nine. In my glory days (aka the lowest weight I have ever been except when I was born), I wore them proudly with fun t-shirts from Urban Outfitters, like one that read “Pirates Arrrrgh Awesome.” What can I say? I was nineteen.
Honestly, though, I looked hot in those shorts. As my mom says when she sees pictures of herself in the 1970s – I was young and firm. You know what else I was? Miserable. I was eating 1000 calories or less per day. I was running myself sick and doing 100 crunches a night. I was crying myself to sleep with an empty stomach suffering from undiagnosed depression.
Even so, my ass looked great in those shorts.
Over the past 15 years, I told myself someday I’d go back to that. Someday I could fit back into those white shorts. I kept them in my dresser drawer, like a surprise guest in the wings, waiting to spring on stage when they heard their cue. That cue? Me losing the equivalent weight of an entire fourth grader. The only issue was the cue never came. I stayed roughly the same size, yet I just couldn’t bring myself to give up on the promise of those white shorts.
For over a decade, they stood as a symbol of something I foolishly thought I could get back – my youth. I wanted it back so bad because I had squandered it away when I had it, wallowing in misery and self-harm. I spent years convinced I was inadequate. As I grew older, wiser, and relatively happier, I yearned to go back to that time with the wisdom I had gained. I wanted a do-over. A takesies-backsies.
But that’s simply not possible. I kept learning and kept growing. Now I’ve accepted that there is no going back. Cleaning out my closet, as I held the white shorts in front of myself, I accepted that they will never have the pleasure of gracing this ass again.
Even if I could go back, I wouldn’t. There’s too much good around me now. I am confident enough to wear shorts in my size that adequately cover my bathing suit area. I was forced to clean out my closet for the very good reason of making room for my fiancé and his clothes. I got to empty the drawers under our bed because we upgraded to a new grown-up-looking king size bed. I feel grateful that my life has become bigger than those shorts.
During those in-between years, I had left behind the painful days of my early 20s but hadn’t yet found the everyday joy that feeling comfortable with yourself brings. Don’t get me wrong – I still have hard days. Some days that decades-old voice come back and tries to tell me I need to lose weight. It tells me I need to “get back” to that size. It tells me that I’m not worthy until I do.
It has taken me many years and lots of therapy to realize I am worthy just by virtue of my existing. What I have to contribute isn’t made more or less by what my body looks like. What is important is taking care of my body, enjoying life, and being kind – both to other people and to myself. It also helps to be with someone who, when faced with complaints from me about how my body looks, responds with, “I would marry you today, right now, this minute, because I love you just the way you are.” Yeah, like I said last week, there’s no way he’s real.
So into the donation bag both the jeans and the shorts went. I hope the new home they find is a happy one. I hope the cheeks they eventually hug feel beautiful and worthy and look as good as mine did (or would have, if I’d ever put those Kitson jeans on).
Just before slipping them into the donation bag when I held those white shorts for the last time, I brought them up to myself in the mirror. I had to laugh. Even if I were thin enough to fit into them, they are absurdly short. My laugh turned to a smile, grateful that I don’t need to hold out hope that someday will come. Someday has already arrived. It’s here, better than I ever imagined. And I don’t need to squeeze into a pair of coochie cutters to enjoy it.
QUESTION FROM ME! – Total Workplace Discrimination Makeover
This week’s question comes from me incredulously reading the news and then seeing this fool on billboards all over Dallas:
“The company of Dave Ramsey, personal finance ‘expert’ and evangelical Christian radio host, has repeatedly fired employees over premarital sex. Is that legal?”
Excellent question, me! I love answering questions from you, but just like you, I sometimes hear about things happening and wonder whether they’re legal. Here’s one that has been rattling up in the ol’ noodle since the news was announced.
As some of you may know, Dave Ramsey is a personal finance personality. He has a radio show, tons of books, and offers personal financial training. Most effective may be his personal story that captivates listeners. At 58 years old, Ramsey has an estimated net worth of $200 million, even after previously filing for personal bankruptcy earlier in his life. He utilizes Biblical principles to guide others to a life free from debt in pursuit of financial freedom.
Ramsey has created The Lampo Group, LLC which operates Ramsey Solutions, the company that runs his courses, publishes his books, and produces his radio show. The company has about 900 employees, which subjects it to the federal laws like the Family and Medical Leave Act and Americans with Disabilities Act. Based in Tennessee, it is also subject to Tennessee state employment laws as well.
In July 2020, a former employee filed suit against Ramsey Solutions after being fired for having premarital sex. Yeah, I just wrote that sentence, and that sentence says that a company prohibited its employees from getting their bang on outside the confines of work.
Now, look, I get it. They’re a religious company. The issue we have here is with enforcement. Unless the company wants to invest in fleetwide chastity belts for every employee, the only real way to glean whether an employee has had sex is if that employee shows up pregnant. This disparately impacts women, at least according to the fired woman’s attorney.
That is what happened to the plaintiff suing Ramsey’s company, Caitlin O’Connor. After discovering she was pregnant with her long-term partner’s baby, O’Connor asked her HR representative for paperwork on FMLA leave that she planned to take as her maternity leave. She also requested paperwork on ADA accommodations because she was carrying a “geriatric pregnancy” and wanted to explore options for possible accommodations.
The next day she was told she had to meet with the board of the company. A few days later, after meeting with board members, she was terminated after four years of solid performance for violating “Company Conduct.” The exact language in the company policy is available in the complaint. It reads:
“The image of Ramsey Solutions is held out to be Christian. Should a team member engage in behavior not consistent with traditional Judeo-Christian values or teaching, it would damage the image and the value of our good will and our brand. If this should occur, the team member would be subject to review, probation, or termination.”
The Code of Conduct also incorporates a “righteous living” policy which prohibits premarital sex.
O’Connor’s complaint argues that her termination interfered with her right to take FMLA leave, discriminated against her due to her sex, pregnancy, religion, and disability, and was in retaliation for becoming pregnant, requesting FMLA, and/or her disabilities. She also pointed out that Ramsey Solutions “in a particularly cruel manner” also terminated her health insurance benefits which include pre and post-natal care.
Ramsey Solutions had a defense to these allegations: it didn’t only fire Caitlin O’Connor for violating this policy. It fired several other folks, too – to be precise, it fired eight other employees over the past five years. In its Motion to Dismiss filed in the case, the parent company argued that because it is a private, for-profit employer, it is within its legal rights to fire employees for any reason so long as the reason is not discriminatory or retaliatory.
Is it legal for Dave Ramsey’s company to fire employees for doing the no-pants dance?
Maybe. In the 2014 U.S. Supreme Court Decision Burwell v. Hobby Lobby, the Supreme Court held that “closely held” for-profit companies can exercise religious beliefs.
“Closely held” is defined by the IRS as those companies that have more than 50% of the value of their outstanding stock owned (directly or indirectly) by 5 or fewer individuals at any time during the last half of the tax year; and that are not personal service corporations. According to the Washington Post, as of 2014, approximately 90% of U.S. corporations are “closely held”, and approximately 52% of the U.S. workforce is employed by “closely held” corporations.
Hobby Lobby, a chain of craft stores with 500 locations and 13,000 employees falls under this definition. It stands to reason then that The Lampo Group LLC/Ramsey Solutions with its 900 “team members” falls under the definition as well.
The Hobby Lobby decision confirmed that the Religious Freedom Restoration Act of 1993 (RFRA) allows a for-profit company to deny its employees health coverage of contraception to which the employees would otherwise be entitled based on the religious objections of the company’s owners.
The majority of justices in Hobby Lobby specifically emphasized that the decision only concerned the contraceptive mandate of the Affordable Care Act and should not be understood to hold that all insurance-coverage mandates, e.g., for vaccinations or blood transfusions, must necessarily fall if they conflict with an employer’s religious beliefs. The Court also clarified that the Hobby Lobby decision does not provide a shield for employers who might cloak illegal discrimination as a religious practice.
Even with these caveats, there is nothing stopping someone from asking the Court to extend the law to their religious-based practices in their “closely held” businesses that would otherwise run afoul of anti-discrimination laws.
Given this possibility and what it has to lose, it doesn’t seem like Ramsey’s organization is willing to back down. If so inclined, the case could be argued up to the higher court, and Ramsey Solutions could ask for relief under the RFRA. That law provides that the government “shall not substantially burden a person’s exercise of religion even if the burden results from a rule of general applicability.” The Hobby Lobby court confirmed that the definition of “person” includes corporations. The exception to that rule – which allows the government to burden the religious exercise of employers – occurs where the government demonstrates that applying the burden on religious exercise meets two requirements:
(1) The burden on exercising religion is in furtherance of a compelling governmental interest; and
(2) The burden on exercising religion is the least restrictive means of furthering that compelling governmental interest.
In plain terms, if the government was to infringe on the exercise of religious beliefs, it has to have a really really good reason to do so, and it has to infringe on the exercising of religious beliefs in the least restrictive way possible. This sounds like nonsense, and it is. Welcome to the practice of law, where the rules are made up and the points don’t matter.
There are two questions then: (1) Does the federal government have a compelling interest in preventing discrimination on the basis of sex, pregnancy, and disability and providing medical leave to employees? I think it does. Then (2) Does prohibiting employers from firing employees who engage in premarital sex further that government interest via the least restrictive means possible? In other words, is there another, easier way to prevent discrimination other than prohibiting companies from firing people for doing the humpty hump?
Let’s take Hobby Lobby for example. The ACA mandate at issue in Hobby Lobby forced all employers, including companies with religious beliefs, to provide contraception to their employees. The Court reasoned there were other, albeit not as convenient, ways for employees to obtain access to contraception. Because the contraception mandate forced companies to violate their “religious beliefs” where a lesser restrictive alternative was available, the Court held the mandate was in violation of the RFRA.
I am racking my brain for a less restrictive way to further that compelling government interest of a workplace free from discrimination on the basis of sex, pregnancy, and disability besides prohibiting companies from firing people for having sex outside of marriage. I got nothing. If you can think of a way, please reply to this newsletter and let me know what that is.
Whether Ramsey Solutions is in violation of federal law may be a question for the Supreme Court. As for state law, in 1997, the Supreme Court held that the RFRA is unconstitutional as it applies to state and local laws in City of Boerne v. Flores. So as to its violations of Tennessee state laws, Ramsey’s company wouldn’t be able to rely on the RFRA to get out of those claims.
Based on their most recent filing, Ramsey Solutions seems intent on fighting O’Connor’s lawsuit. She filed in federal district court, so it could be appealed to the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals, and later, the Supreme Court. That is when we will see whether the new make-up of the Supreme Court will extend the RFRA to employment laws, potentially eroding laws meant to protect employees who don’t necessarily fit a “Christian ideal” in the eyes of their employers.
It also is not clear whether these accusations have impacted Ramsey’s image or lost him any audience members. I’ve never followed him much or read any of his books, so I can’t tell you whether “discriminate against your employees” is some kind of hot tip for personal finance. I’m no expert, but I can tell you “don’t get sued” is a pretty good plan for saving money on legal fees. I am also rusty on my Bible reading, so I’m not sure whether “thou shalt deny pre- and post-natal insurance care to unwed mothers” is in the New Testament or the Old. Maybe it’s not in either???
Caitlin O’Connor isn’t the only one suing the Ramsey entity. On April 15, 2021, a former video editor for the company sued Ramsey Solutions and Dave himself in county court claiming the workplace was run as a “religious cult” that referred to those who wore masks as “wusses” and demanded “complete and total submission to Dave Ramsey and his views of the world to maintain employment.” According to the complaint, this employee was fired for “failing to follow [Ramsey’s] particular view that taking precautions other than prayer against COVID infection would make a person fall out of God’s favor.” As far as I can tell, Ramsey is not a doctor or infectious disease expert.
As for Ramsey himself, he doesn’t seem to give an eff about any of this. In a Q&A he posted on his website, he told a Twitter user it was OK to fire an employee for having an extramarital affair outside the office. Ramsey, who as far as I can tell, is not a lawyer either, said, “I’ve got a right to tell my employees whatever I want to tell them. They freaking work for me.” Amen, I guess?
I hope that was interesting for all you to learn as it was for me to research. Thanks for reading.
Got a question? Submit it here. They can be legal what-if questions, questions on current events, or questions about the legality of actions in TV shows or movies you’ve seen. I never ever want to answer your personal legal questions, so don't send those. Love you, but I don’t do that.
Until next week, that’s the tea. Don’t get sued like Dave Ramsey.
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