December 16, 2024.
The 2024 election is over. The electorate has spoken and so too have the federal courts, upholding age discrimination against political candidates.
On December 10, 2024 DC District Court dismissed an age discrimination suit I filed against the Washington Post for an article it published in 2021 depicting me as a liar for misreporting my age on a candidate questionnaire. (Case 1:24-cv-00384-RBW).
I argued that because the questionnaire wouldn’t submit for publication without reporting a valid age, it was compulsory and therefore violated the Age Discrimination Act of 1975 (42 U.S.C. 6101-6107).
This civil rights era law bars age discrimination by any program or activity receiving federal financial assistance “by way of grant, entitlement, loan, or contract other than a contract of insurance or guaranty” 42 U.S.C. 6103(a)(4).
I also argued that since compelling candidates to report their age is inherently discriminatory, it is immaterial how they report it, because the Post has no right to compel protected information in the first place.
The Court rejected my argument and agreed with the Post that procurement contracts of the type it negotiates with the federal government do not constitute federal financial assistance. Thus the Post is not governed by the Age Discrimination Act and is free to discriminate on the basis of age.
DC District Court’s decision was all but a foregone conclusion, which I plan to appeal. In the meantime, I take comfort from the fact that I enjoy a lot of company among other candidates for public office, most of whom are over the age of 40.
This decision not only undermines their rights but those of countless other Americans, whose right to withhold their age from institutions that don’t have a need to know has been read out of the Age Discrimination Act of 1975.