fling93 loves fishies

Cirque du Soleil & Matthew Cusick update

Many months ago, I mentioned that Cirque du Soleil fired Matthew Cusick for being HIV positive, which struck me as discriminatory:

This additional article on Cusick from the Gay.com / PlanetOut.com Network notes that “there are no documented cases of HIV transmission between two athletes during a sports event,” which isn’t too much of a surprise. Even in contact sports, open wounds coming into contact are extremely rare, except perhaps in boxing (and really, if they cut down on the ear-biting, that’d go a long way). And as the CDC points out, even if “an open wound came in contact with an HIV-positive athlete who is bleeding, the odds of transmission would be less than 0.3 percent,” and of course, that’s a big if anyway.

I’d figured most people understood all this by now after the whole Magic Johnson deal, but I guess I was wrong.

If you consider that the odds are already astronomical for two open wounds to come into contact, it should be clear that Cirque du Soleil’s fear of HIV transmission is unfounded and not a good reason to fire somebody.

I’ve been meaning to post an update on his case for some time. Via Scott, PlanetOut reported in January that the EEOC indeed ruled that this was illegal discrimination:

The U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) released a decision Friday that found the Montreal-based performance troupe Cirque du Soleil engaged in illegal discrimination when it fired an HIV-positive gymnast.

And finally last month, Cirque du Soleil and Matthew Cusick worked out the final terms of the settlement:

Lambda Legal announced today that Cirque du Soleil will pay a record $600,000 to end an HIV discrimination complaint filed by a performer who was fired last year because he has HIV. The settlement ends a nationwide campaign and a federal disability complaint filed by Lambda Legal on behalf of its client, Matthew Cusick.

“This is a huge victory for working people with HIV because it tells employers that there’s a steep price to pay for HIV discrimination,” said Hayley Gorenberg, Director of Lambda Legal’s AIDS Project and the lead attorney on the case. “This kind of discrimination still happens all across the country, and today’s record-setting settlement will have ripple effects nationwide.”

According to Lambda Legal, today’s agreement is the largest public settlement ever for an HIV-discrimination complaint settled with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission.

I know many Libertarians would probably prefer that companies and employees be free to terminate a relationship for any reason whatsoever, including stupid ones, but I think that would result in widespread unwarranted discrimination in many cases where those being discriminated against would have no recourse. Widespread irrational fear is an example of the market failing, and it can happen just like widespread irrational exuberance can lead to asset bubbles.

So in my mind, everything here worked out the way it should.