Which is why anti-discrimination laws are entirely toothless. “I didn’t fire you because you are black/female/Muslim, I fired you because I stubbed my toe on the way into the office!”

Like, unless they put into text “we fired this person because X,” you’re never getting any form of justice.

I watched my manager at a shitty fast food job toss a black guy’s application - “because the last one caused problems.” Unless you get enough people to to testify it’s a pattern - enough people willing to risk their jobs for justice that likely won’t happen - there’s nothing for it. Fuck, I lost my last job pretty much immediately after bringing up some Title 9 violations and asking for some accommodations for a medical condition - the retaliation is obvious but not enough to make a lawyer happy.

I guess in federal spaces, there are technically more protections, but we aren’t operating under the rule of law right now. Rules only exist if they are enforced.

The federal government actually does have protections for people who are not in the probationary period, which is why they only fired people in the probationary period, because if they tried to fire tenured employees they'd have a much bigger fight. But that probationary period can last from 1 to 2 years, and also kicks in again for anyone who starts in a new position.