Differentiating Discrimination vs. Job Requirements When It Comes to COVID Protocols
It’s come to light that well-known Broadway performers, Laura Osnes and Chad Kimball, are pursuing legal action against production companies/news outlets due to the negative impact their refusal to get vaccinated or adhering to COVID rules has had on their careers since the outbreak of Covid-19. I’m not going to go into all the details of these specific cases, partially because OnStage Blog has no wish to potentially enter the fray when it comes to litigious persons, but mainly because what I want to address is more far-reaching.
Not to get platitudinal, or out of the theatrical realm, but I think we can all agree that the world we’re living in, especially in the United States, has changed dramatically even just over the past several years. Even before anything to do with recent U.S. politics came into play many were commenting about the rise of the “me” era.
Now to some degree, there will always be a natural ebb and flow of schools of thought – putting the community first swings back with the needs of the self, and so it should. But whether it’s because of social media, “fake news,” politics, or just the general move of human nature, it now seems to be that “whatever is best for me” is all a lot of people care about.
Self-care is immensely important, and I certainly want the freedom to reject having a chip implanted in my brain when the apocalypse comes, but that doesn’t mean that organizations implementing requirements on who can and can’t do certain things is automatically a bad thing.
And it’s not just about getting vaccinated.
I’ve heard complaints about everything from reverse discrimination when a creative team is looking for performers of color for specific roles to audience members assaulting front-of-house staff because they can’t bring a pizza into the theater to eat at their seat.
Let’s take a theoretical example. Yes, it’s meant to be comical, but it still makes a point.
Let’s say my child fell in a vat of toxic waste. They’re fine, but they’re now half human/half toxic and radioactive to anyone who comes in close proximity to them.
My school district has a policy of no radioactive material in schools in order to protect the staff and children and they’ve told me that I can no longer enroll my child in their school district.
Well, I believe my child is being discriminated against. It’s my right as a citizen to have access to my local public school. My child should have the exact same education as everyone else. I want my child to go to my local school and I have that freedom as a parent. I sue the school district and get them to give me permission to enroll my (literally) toxic child.
Well, the school year starts and all the other kids and staff start to get sick from radiation poisoning. Now their rights are being impinged upon – namely to be able to attend school in a safe environment.
Both my child and the other people in the school having unrestricted freedom are mutually exclusive. There are situations where someone is not going to be able to “do whatever they want.” If the only way for me to have unrestrictive freedom is to take away your freedoms then, sorry, someone might have to tell me “no.”
We, especially those in the theater (which is supposed to be an instrument of empathy,) need to understand that sometimes we have to give a little in order for everyone’s good and safety. Sorry to be blunt but, no, it is not an impingement on your freedom if I require you to wear a mask, just as it isn’t to require someone in the food service industry to wear a hair net, or anyone walking around a construction site to wear a hard hat.
Discomfort is not the same as a civil violation. Especially since there are some people out there who for various reasons CAN’T (legitimately, medically) do so and you are seriously putting them in harm’s way by not wearing one.
Vaccines have been required by various institutions for a very long time. Starting decades ago you had to get them to attend school. There are after-school programs that require their teachers to be vaccinated (and I’m talking long before Covid) as do many other jobs.
Yes, there are some exemptions in schools for religious beliefs or medical reasons but those were not created as loopholes for everyone who just didn’t want to get them to take advantage of. And if you’re trying to get a job that requires vaccinations and you refuse to get them, you’re not getting that job. That’s not Covid specific, it’s been going on for a long time.
You are free to make the choice. No one is strapping you down and forcing you to get them, they are simply giving you the choice to work for them and get vaccinated, or find other employment where vaccinations aren’t a requirement.
Same with all restrictions. Theaters do not allow you to bring meals into the theater to eat during the performance. Your choice is to come into the theater without food or not go into the theater. If you bring that food in you could inadvertently damage the theater – causing immense work for staff and insane repair costs for the theater to restore what may be a piece of a historical landmark. You might be sitting next to someone who is severely allergic to what you’re eating, or simply causing discomfort to those who don’t want to smell your food or hear you chewing through the show.
If we let this spiral even further downward we’re looking at people with no movement skills suing a production because on the audition breakdown it says they’re only looking for people with “strong dance experience” which is theoretically discriminating against non-dancers. People without a degree who want to be doctors saying they’re being discriminated against because having an MD is a job requirement of being a doctor.
And guess what? There are times when having specific requirements benefits EVERYONE. If you are not a dancer it’s not doing anyone any favors to put you in a dance role – not only will it be detrimental to the production but you could potentially get severely injured.
Requirements are, theoretically, clearly stating the needs of a given situation – whether it be a job, or simply a group gathering and giving you a chance to assess whether that situation is right for you.
The theater is a place predicated on safety – both emotional and physical. A production is responsible for the safety not only of the performers, crew, and other team members on staff, but of the audience. There might be someone in the theater who is immune compromised or any other myriad of things that might put them in harm’s way more than most and needs the group to take care of them. In the case of Covid vaccines, it’s not a matter of “I’m making a decision for me” in the same way you decide what diet is best for you…your decision affects EVERYONE to the point where death (either of you or someone else) is a serious potential consequence.
There have been landmark legal cases where a family who didn’t believe in certain kinds of medical care (for religious or other reasons) had a child on death’s door who would not survive without said medical care.
Frequently the state temporarily took the parent’s rights away in order to save the child’s life, deeming the life more important than the beliefs. I’m not here to say what is or isn’t the right thing to do in such situations, but I am saying it is a complex moral question where frequently when push comes to shove, some people’s freedoms are suspended so that other freedoms can be honored.
That is part of the human experience and to say such decisions are simple and something you get 100% say about if yours is one of the lives being affected, isn’t ok. In the case of the particular lawsuits I mentioned earlier, both performers lost employment because they not only failed to comply with requirements from their respective employers but with requirements from the CDC.
I don’t know what the answer is. Like I said, I don’t want the government to ever force me to do something I don’t want to do, but that’s not exactly what was happening here. Every citizen of the United States was given the choice to be vaccinated against Covid or not. No one was being threatened with unfair consequences; no one was coming to take your house or freeze your bank account if you didn’t get vaccinated. But you were responsible for the results of whichever decision you made.
This was not a case of discriminatory fallout from a good faith actor, this was wanting to have their cake and eat it too, regardless of how it might affect anyone else. Let’s be clear, these particular employment restrictions for performers regarding being Covid vaccinated were temporary.
Just like millions of people around the world, there are a lot of jobs that stopped during Covid for a myriad of reasons. Many of these jobs (and all of the affected industries) were coming back. Broadway performers were not unique in the loss of jobs, for a myriad of reasons.
No one seems to mention that, as of today, 93 million people in the U.S. caught Covid and 1.04 million people in the U.S. died. To put it in perspective 289,000 Americans died in World War Two and this year ~30,000 Americans will die of the flu. There have been incredible numbers of false negative tests, meaning that someone who tested negative could still be infected and give it to someone else – including someone who was immunocompromised or a child who wasn’t yet eligible to be vaccinated.
Yes, there is great discrimination in this industry and the world at large, but there comes a point when we need to differentiate between discrimination and basic job requirements that we can either meet or not. Not to do so is a disservice to those who face real, awful discrimination and severe retaliation for speaking out or not “falling in line”.
When looking at job requirements, or even audience requirements really think about whether what is being asked is truly discriminatory and problematic, or something that might just not be right for you for whatever reason.
Whether you’re an audience member, performer or creative team member let’s look out for each other and strive for all of us to be safe and healthy. Sometimes that means you need to speak out against injustice, but sometimes that means you need to take one for the team.