The news in from California last night is that Thomas Demartini, the DMV clerk accused of harassing Amber Yust, has resigned from his job. No disciplinary action has been taken against him, beyond his being given several weeks paid vacation at the expense of California taxpayers. However, now that they have managed to wash their hands of their troublesome employee, the DMV have finally admitted that his behavior was “unacceptable and wholly unauthorized”.

What exactly is going on here? I have seen it suggested (in comments here) that if the DMV had tried to take any action against Demartini he would have sued them for unfair dismissal and probably got his job back along with considerable damages. However, given what he did, this seems highly unlikely. If he had behaved the way he did against a member of almost any other minority group he would have been escorted from his desk faster than you could say “breach of confidentiality.”

What I suspect has happened is that the DMV is afraid it may lose the law suit that Amber is bringing against them, and is taking action to limit the damage. Allowing Demartini to resign means he gets away without any actual punishment, while at the same time the DMV can claim that they were going to punish him, but sadly he’s gone so there’s nothing they can do. It is a shocking display of contempt for the private citizens who entrust their personal data to DMV staff.

Well, one small sub-set of private citizens anyway. The ones who don’t actually class as human beings and can therefore be abused with impunity.

I understand that the law suit against the DMV will go ahead. I hope that the judge throws the book at them. However, given the state of the California budget, there may well be pressure to minimize any payout.