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Comment by c3534l | Hacker News Reader

I think this is important:

> “Yes, there was an initial denial, but as soon as it was brought to our attention it was rectified immediately,” Ms. Bellack said. “She has the right to apply for the plate, and the plate is available to anyone, including this individual.”

So the person complained that some minimum wage worker at the DMV inappropriately denied a vanity license plate, which was overruled by the person in charge and they still had to spend 3 years in court and pay out $75,000. Fuck that. A low-level person made a mistake and it was immediately fixed, but this person apparently saw it as an opportunity to get some free money out of the government.

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"As soon as it was brought to our attention" is probably code for "as soon as we received certified mail from an attorney intending to sue". In other words, the DMV will sit on its ass and let low-level workers discriminate against atheists (and, let's be honest, any other minority who is disfavored by the majority religion in the US) unless lawyers get involved. That's why these kinds of test cases are important.

The last two paragraphs of the article touch exactly on this. They talk about another person who had a similar incident where his first attempt was rejected but the follow-up wasn't, and he explicitly mentions why _that_ is his problem: "the problem was that the system discriminated against me and made me appeal".

But yes, if you come in with a "this didn't actually happen, this is someone making a big deal out of nothing" mindset, that is the lesson you can take away from the article too.

So the person complained that some minimum wage worker at the DMV inappropriately denied a vanity license plate, which was overruled by the person in charge

In many cases when religious beliefs are used to discriminate against someone, it is not merely a case of one lone bad apple who nobody ever condoned; instead it's a case of the institution itself either not caring or clandestinely condoning the behavior so long as it stays out of the limelight. Often, the supervisors and others higher up the chain are well aware of what's going on and either approve of it or see no reason to do anything to stop it, and so only do the minimum they think necessary to keep it from blowing up into a public scandal. Remember that culture comes from the top: if low-level employees think they can get away with this stuff it's because the higher-ups gave them reason to think it.

Forcing a public lawsuit that costs money and potentially jobs is one of the few ways to put an end to such things.

The article paraphrased. The court document showed that the person attempted for months to get the plates and never did. Also the money was to pay for court fees which the government required the person spend in the first place to get the plates.

further down the article it says the DMV there has already shown a history of prejudice against atheists. Forcing a lawsuit to rectify their procedures in the future is imo a good use of the courts.

Edit: history of prejudice may be too extreme. probably "has shown to be prejudiced" would be better

Perhaps they cared more about setting a precedent that this should have never been denied in the first place, and won't be in the future. Without the lawsuit, this could just continue to happen to other residents who are unable to complain as loudly.

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