ACLU says State Bar Association fired man because of HIV diagnosis

The ACLU has taken up the case of a man who says the State Bar Association fired him because he is HIV positive.

Gary Peck of the American Civil Liberties Union said the federal Equal Employment Opportunity Commission issued a letter supporting the Las Vegas man's claims. Peck said the individual was fired from his job as a reference specialist less than two months after disclosing his HIV status to his supervisor at the Bar Association.

"The preponderance of the evidence supports charging party's claim that he was discharged because of his disability," the EEOC letter states, adding that the evidence is sufficient to show the law was violated.

He said the EEOC letter is significant because the commission issues determination letters in only a few cases.

Peck objected to the termination, saying the Bar Association is "a prestigious legal organization whose failure to follow the law is particularly disturbing and sets a bad example for others."

The individual complained that despite positive comments about his work, when his diagnosis became known "attitudes towards me drastically changed and the treatment from my co-workers and supervisors became extremely distant."

He said no specific reason was given him for his firing.

Both ACLU and the EEOC letter call on the bar association to get together with the individual and work out a settlement.

A Bar Association spokesman said the group would file a response to the EEOC later this week and could not comment on the allegations at this point. But in its initial letter to the EEOC, the association said the individual's job was to receive calls from people needing help, and that he was getting several times as many complaints as his co-workers.

The association argued that attitudes toward him at work may have changed "because he was performing poorly at work, taking long breaks, roaming the building and placing an unnecessary burden on his co-workers by not performing his job duties."

The Bar Association's letter concludes that, although the individual's medical condition is unfortunate, "the existence of HIV/AIDS does not require an employer to tolerate poor job performance."

His lawyers, however, refuted those claims saying that the Bar Association's own records show that accusations of poor work performance are not true.