Fired UC Berkeley Employee Sues for Gender Identity Discrimination

Omi Salas-SantaCruz, a former UC Berkeley employee and doctoral student in the Berkeley School of Education, filed a lawsuit against campus and School of Education professor Patricia Baquedano-López on Nov. 17, alleging discrimination on the basis of their nonbinary identity.

Salas-SantaCruz began working at UC Berkeley on Sept. 2, 2014, at Berkeley Law, later joining the School of Education’s Laboratory for the Study of Interaction and Discourse in Education Research, or L-SIDER; UC Berkeley Summer Sessions on a part-time basis; and the Multicultural Community Center, or MCC, as director and fellow. They claim they took their position at the center after being denied other job opportunities.

Salas-SantaCruz alleged that despite being named an “Outstanding Instructor,” they were not granted the same research and laboratory opportunities as their peers in L-SIDER and the MCC following their gender-affirming transition in May 2016. They were terminated in May 2017.

Read the source article at dailycal.org