The Colorado State Patrol has been ordered to pay a gay ex-trooper over $750,000 in damages after they refused to rehire him after effectively outing him during a lie detector test.
Brett Williams, 45, quit his job as a CSP trooper and captain in 2010, but following second thoughts, he reapplied to the agency. He was given a polygraph test, during which he was asked — as we’re assuming must be protocol — if a man or a woman had given him a massage on a trip he had taken to Thailand.
“I answered honestly, just like I did to all the questions, that the person was male,” Williams told KDVR from his home in Hawaii where he now works at an irrigation company. “He kind of had a smile on his face about it so I kind of knew at that time that something was not right. So by answering that honestly, I knew what the outcome of that was going to be and basically they’d forced me out of my closet.”
Williams was denied reinstatement and so, finding it hard to find work at other police agencies, he said “aloha” to Colorado and “aloha!” to Hawaii. Then last summer, the State Personnel Board agreed that Williams had been discriminated against, leading the CSP to vow to improve its diversity training. A judge last week decided to award Williams $768,000 in front and back pay, which Williams’s lawyer hopes furthers the CSP’s efforts.
Williams, however, is skeptical and feels that “not a single thing” will change.
“I was pleased with [the judge’s] ruling,” Williams said. “But at the same time, I can’t get too excited about it because basically I know that the State Patrol and the state will continue to drag it out, draw it out and appeal it.”
To wit, the CSP released a statement that they stand by their decision not to rehire Brett Williams and that the decision “had nothing to do with his sexual orientation.” They plan to appeal the order for damages.
Well, if his sexual orientation had nothing to do with it, was it the Thai massage? For all the trouble that bodywork has apparently caused Williams, we hope that at least the massage had a happy ending.
pierre
Just because you get a massage from a male means you’re gay? I don’t get it. There has to be more to this story than that.
balehead
My money is on another gay being the one who fired him…..
Dakotahgeo
Arrogant, uneducated State of Colorado (and Arizona, AND______!) There will come a time when the settlement will be paid, plus interest! I do not understand why or how these official dolts don’t get their collective heads out of their a$$ and shape up, ethically?! Oh well, let them learn the hard way!
Kangol
Good for him!
D9W
The Judge needs to add a Zero to the end of his award for every year the CSP drag this out. Maybe when CSP has to have a bake sale to buy a new night stick, handcuffs, or a new patrol car, and use muffin sales to pay for their lie detector test, maybe they will think twice before lying again. Then again, maybe the judge just needs to demand that the whole CSP command be removed, then and only then will it stop screwing up and improve its diversity training. I bet it’s going to take the judge to just freeze all Federal handouts/moneys to the CSP for ten years to get the CSP to change their tune, maybe some jail time for the heads of states too for contempt.
erasure25
@pierre: Why does there have to be more to it? Straight men are mostly ignorant and believe that getting touched by another man (when being massaged no less) means you are gay. Perception is enough to warrant a discrimination lawsuit. What was the point of the question if not to out him and then not hire him?