# Evening Sentinel v. National Organization for Women

> Supreme Court of Connecticut · February 25, 1975 · 168 Conn. 26

URL: https://www.frixlaw.com/law-library/cases/9762880

## Case

- **Full name:** The Evening Sentinel Et Al. v. National Organization for Women; The Evening Sentinel Et Al. v. Commission on Human Rights and Opportunities
- **Court:** Supreme Court of Connecticut
- **Decided:** February 25, 1975
- **Citations:** 168 Conn. 26; 357 A.2d 498; 10 Fair Empl. Prac. Cas. (BNA) 1043; 1975 Conn. LEXIS 918
- **Precedential status:** Published
- **Opinion:** Dissent by MacDonald
- **Judges:** House, Shapiro, Loiselle, MacDonald, Bogdanski
- **Cited by:** 60 later opinions in the Frix Law Library

## Citator (automated)

- **Yellow flag:** Disagreed with by Thibodeau v. Design Group One Architects, LLC, 260 Conn. 691 (2002).
- Negative treatments: 1
- Distinguished by: 0
- Full citator and citing cases: https://www.frixlaw.com/law-library/cases/9762880

## How later opinions describe it (automated extraction)

- concluding that a publisher facilitates discrimination by placing employment advertisement in a sex-designated column

## Opinion text

MacDonald, J.
(dissenting). I cannot agree with the majority opinion in either its reasoning, result or inherent philosophy. I find no evidence whatsoever in the record to support the finding that the plaintiffs in any way aided and abetted any violation of the ulifair employment practices prohibited by the statute by making any independent judgment with respect to the placing of an advertisement under a particular heading nor, for that matter, can I find any evidence of specific discrimination against any individual which resulted from the method of advertising which is under attack.
At the calculated risk of being accused of male chauvinism, I must observe that I consider this particular controversy nothing more than a tempest in a teapot that raises such ridiculous overtones as to call for some equally ridiculous observations. I do not consider it discrimination, for example, but merely a convenience to job hunters, to place under a “Help Wanted Male” heading the advertisement of a carnival for a strong man, of the Pittsburgh Steelers for a linebacker, or of a dramatic producer for a Winston Churchill. I consider equally non-ob jectionable to a potential National Organization for Men the placing under a “Help Wanted Female” *40 caption the carnival’s ad for a bearded lady, a nightclub’s ad for a topless dancer or the ad of a dramatic producer for a Lady Godiva or Cleopatra. And I shudder to contemplate the implications that might follow the nonclassified placing of the “Lonely Heart” ads!
Connecticut recently pioneered in overwhelmingly electing a woman as its chief executive purely on the basis of her qualifications for the position, and I applaud that equality of opportunity based upon qualification. By the same token I could even understand the acceptance of a qualified woman in response to an ad for a scoutmaster or of a qualified man as a den mother. However, some jobs remain which call for sex differentiation, even in these days when such differentiation has become increasingly difficult for the casual observer to discern — and differentiation is not discrimination. Accordingly, I see no reason why the so-called BFOQ (bona fide occupational qualification) exceptions should not be listed under separate male and female headings as a matter of reader convenience.
Differences of color, race, religious creed, national origin or ancestry are, basically, only skin-deep, but the differences between man and woperson, fortunately for the continued propagation of the huperson race, go somewhat deeper. And as the French person in the Chamber of Deputies once ecstatically cried, “Vive la difference!”

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Source: Frix Law Library, https://www.frixlaw.com/law-library/cases/9762880. Public record. Not legal advice.