Iowa Supreme Court: Employers can fire workers they find too sexy.

Good thing I don't work in Iowa. I'd never find work.  (Waka-waka!)

An Iowa dental assistant, Melissa Nelson, worked for dentist James Knight for over ten years, and according to all parties involved--including Knight--Nelson never once flirted. Indeed, in an odd twist, it was Knight who sent [[ahem]] unsavory text messages to his assistant, asking her how often she orgasmed. Admittedly, that's a needs-to-know sort of thing from your employer.

As was apparent, Knight had the hots for Nelson. So much so that Knight's wife was concerned and told her dentist husband to fire Nelson for the sake of their marriage.

So...he did.

In a move that surprised no one, Nelson didn't take kindly to being fired simply because she was attractive and ignoring a boss sexually harassing her--so she sued.

But this is Iowa, where the heightened ability to put up with misogyny is matched only by the height of corn. Nelson's case went to the state supreme court, where seven justices, all male, debated the basic question set before them of "whether an employee who has not engaged in flirtatious conduct may be lawfully terminated simply because the boss views the employee as an irresistible attraction."

Turns out that a bunch of middle-aged male supreme court justices all agreed that a middle-aged male dentist can fire an attractive female assistant because she was too smokin'.*

And with this case decided, the state of Iowa officially embraced all the sensibilities of 1927.




*I assume this is how misogynistic state supreme court justices talk.