In a world of woke extremism, one North Carolina man stood up to the bullies and won. David Duvall, a former Novant Health executive, was awarded $10 million after being fired for discriminatory reasons, WNCT reported. Duvall is a white male and asserted he was replaced in his job for purposes of diversity, not merit.
For five years, Duvall was the senior vice president for marketing and communications at Novant before he lost his job. Luke Largess, Duvall’s attorney, stated, “he was fired and replaced by two women, one a racial minority, during a Diversity and Inclusion initiative in 2018 that included explicit goals to remake the demographics of Novant’s senior leadership.”
Duvall took his case to the courts, and a jury sided with him. WNCT reported that a jury in the U.S. District Court for the Western District of North Carolina’s Charlotte Division found that Duvall demonstrated “that his race (Caucasian) and/or his sex (male) was a motivating factor in Novant Health’s decision to terminate him.” Furthermore, the jury decided that Novant Health did not prove “that it would have made the same decision to terminate David Duvall regardless of his race (Caucasian) and/or his sex (male).”
Novant Health released a statement Tuesday disagreeing with the verdict, WNCT reported.
“We are extremely disappointed with the verdict as we believe it is not supported by the evidence presented at trial, which includes our reason for Mr. Duvall’s termination. We will pursue all legal options, including appeal, over the next several weeks and months. Novant Health is one of thousands of organizations to put in place robust diversity and inclusion programs, which we believe can co-exist alongside strong non-discriminatory policies that extend to all races and genders, including white men. It’s important for all current and future team members to know that this verdict will not change Novant Health’s steadfast commitment to diversity, inclusion and equity for all.”
Cases such as Duvall’s have been happening for years across the country, but such a successful lawsuit is rare. People should be hired or fired based on merit and performance. This used to be a consensus idea. Gender and race have no place in determining who gets hired or fired, whether it involves Jim Crow-era prejudice or its distant racialist cousin, woke politics.
