The Washington Blade reported April 14 about a bus driver who was fired for telling a passenger to go to the back of the bus after the passenger complained about a sign equating same-gender sexual attraction with murder.
On April 19, the Blade reported that the bus driver was suspended, not fired.
Acting D.C. DOT spokesperson Karyn LeBlanc told the Blade this week that the driver would likely return to work next week. According to the Blade:
LeBlanc said this week that First Transit officials now believe a passenger rather than the driver hung the posters on one or more Circulator buses sometime in March.
I would think that a passenger did hang the sign, since similar signs can be found in many–if not most–WMATA busses as well. I must have been mistaken because I thought the issue was not who hung the sign but how the driver responded to the passenger questioning the sign. Meachum even stated so in DDoT’s original statement: “We don’t know if [the driver] posted these signs. But the fact that he told the passenger to go to the back of the bus was completely unacceptable.”
But the fact that he told the passenger to go to the back of the bus was completely unacceptable.”
Exactly, now what happened to that?
Note: Washington Blade needs to dump those crappy popup ads.
David
The Circulator service runs through our neighborhood. When it started last year, the bright colors of the buses really made them stand out.
The first day I saw one of them, though, I figured they were run by a private tourism company, because the bright red LED displays were alternating between “Out of Service” and “God Bless America”. So, I was surprised to learn shortly after that they were to be a part of a public service.
(That was the week before the service began carrying passengers, and I haven’t seen anything like that since.)
Regardless of the source of the poster, I’m glad that — behind the scenes — this must have resulted in clearer company policy within First Transit on the boundaries of personal expression by employees on the job.