Court upholds firing of Richmond police clerk for antigay behavior

A federal appeals court has upheld the Richmond Police Department’s firing of a longtime employee who claimed the department discriminated against her because of her religious disapproval of homosexuality. The Police Department had valid reasons for dismissing records clerk Loudesia Flanagan, including her mistreatment of a volunteer intern who was lesbian, the Ninth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco said Monday. The volunteer intern told a supervisor in March 2012 that Flanagan was not allowing her to enter secured areas of the building, and reported in April 2013 that Flanagan was making her wait in the lobby or acting as if she wasn’t there, Chen said. The department suspended Flanagan with pay in May 2013 and fired her five months later, saying she had been discourteous and disrespectful to the intern, had falsely denied making discriminatory comments, and had created a “hostile work environment” by speaking openly about her dislike for gay people. Upholding Chen’s ruling, the three-judge appeals court panel said Monday that Flanagan had presented no evidence that the department’s stated reasons for firing her were a pretext for religious bias. Flanagan is free to declare her opinions about homosexuality as a private citizen, the panel said, but her “freedom to express such views, in the particular circumstances of this case, gives way in the workplace.”