Reporter Fired for Stripping on the Side Files Sex-Discrimination Complaint

A society reporter who was fired from her job after her employer found out she was moonlighting part-time as a stripper. The reporter filed a complaint with the Equal Opportunity Employment Commission (EEOC), alleging that her firing constituted gender discrimination.

The reporter, who told ABC News that she had been moonlighting “on and off” as a stripper since 2004 to pay for college, started working full-time at the Houston Chronicle in January. In March, an alternative Houston newspaper wrote a “writer by day, stripper by night” story after being tipped off that the reporter was anonymously writing a blog called “Diary of an Angry Stripper.” The Chronicle fired the reporter, who said an editor told her the reason she was fired was because she had not disclosed her dancing experience on her application.

She appears to be pursuing a disparate-impact sex discrimination theory. Her lawyer, Gloria Allred, said in a statement, “Most exotic dancers are female, and therefore to terminate an employee because they had previously been an exotic dancer would have an adverse impact on women, since it is a female dominated occupation."

The fired reporter, who has a master’s degree in journalism from New York University and has taught at the University of Houston, said in a statement, “I had been told by many editors that I was doing a good job…. I don’t believe that I should have been terminated because of a claim that I did not disclose on my employment application that I worked as an exotic dancer. There was no question on the form that covered my dancing. I answered the questions on the form honestly.”

Posted by WeComply on June 1, 2012 WeComply is a leading provider of customizable online ethics and compliance training solutions, offering more than 100 courses on such topics as anti-corruption, antitrust, Code of Conduct, preventing discrimination and harassment, data privacy and security, insider trading and whistleblowing.