Tattoos Now a Civil Right?

29-year old Russell Parrish decided he wanted to tell his life story through his tattoos. Unfortunately for him, his life story now contains a chapter on why he couldn’t get a job because he’s covered with tattoos. Naturally, he claims this is all a result of discrimination:

His tattoos cover his right and left arms and hands. There is a spider in a web crawling up his neck.

Russell says in the last two months he’s applied for over 100 jobs. In almost half of them, he says he was denied because of his tattoos. He says that’s discrimination.

Having tried the EEOC and the Department of Labor, Parrish is now lobbying state lawmakers for a new law that would protect him from discrimination against tattoos. In other words, he now needs the government to step in and bail him out of the bad lifestyle decisions he’s made.

6 Comments

  • Bad choices result in bad consequences. The cat ruined his own life. Let it stay ruined as an example.

  • Free speach is only guaranteed from infringement by the government. No such right exists (except by the special reading of the constitution by supreme court justices) to have your speach not count as a possible negative on a job interview. If he wins on this one, how can anyone not be hired for any job, because not to hire them on the basis of any content of their verbal, non-verbal, or written ‘speach’ would be improper.
    This dude merely needs to find an occupation where his art is appreciated. Maybe the circus is hiring.

  • I agree with everything in this post, up until the suggestion that Mr. Parish must come to grips with “the bad lifestyle decisions he’s made.”

    Gimme a break. If Mr. Parish wants to adorn himself with tattoos, why should Overlawyered deign to emulate Vogue magazine and comment on personal fashion?

    The practical point is that Mr. Parish probably cannot establish a causal link between the tattoos he’s acquired and any hiring decisions by potential employers. So let it go at that and spare the poor fellow the BS about “bad lifestyle choices.”

  • You should learn how to spell “speach” before you “speek” about it.

  • Of course it’s the result of discrimination! EVERY TIME you hire one person over another, unless you flipped a coin, you discriminated between them somehow.

    The question is whether there was anything WRONG with that… which of course, there isn’t.

  • Personally, I’d hire a guy with tatoos unless he’s a regulation lobbyist, like this guy. They’re the real freaks.