Nicole Hunter, a Captain in the Air Force Reserves, is suing her former employer, the Weather Channel. She claims that she was harassed by her management for being in the military and that her refusal to bend to the demands of her employer when it came to military service led to her losing her job in 2011.  She maintains that she was told to pre-clear any military commitments with management and that she was discriminated against after she told her management that she would not be able to come to a meeting about her hairstyle because of requirements to be at drill.

Our volunteer force has a lot of its muscle in the National Guard and Reserve.  This pool of very experienced servicemembers augments and enhances the active force.  A lot of people I know in the Reserves have been doing the same job with the same people for a very long time, which is something that is exceedingly rare in a volunteer force that is continually moving people around from assignment to assignment.  In order to train, exercise, and utilize this supposedly part-time force, the military requires that they and their employers be flexible when their military responsibilities conflict with civilian employment.  It’s so important that a law was passed, the Uniformed Services Employment and Reemployment Rights Act of 1994.  Basically, it gives employees who are discriminated against because of their military commitments grounds to sue.

My employer is very supportive of employees in the Reserves and National Guard.  Several people I work with have been on multiple deployments to support the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, and their job was waiting for them when they got back.  From what I hear, it didn’t take a law to get them to do something decent.  If only all employers took the position that employees who put on a uniform deserve fair treatment.

Are the allegations by Ms. Hunter accurate?  I don’t know, but the fact that someone in an industry like hers was willing to publicly throw stones at one of the biggest employers in that sector leads me to believe that she has a leg to stand on.  You don’t ruin your civilian career unless you know you can win, and I hope that she prevails if her evidence is strong.  If she’s willing to put on a uniform in addition to her civilian job, then she deserves a fair shake.