WHEN Donald Trump fired loose-cannon Stacie J on last week’s episode of “The Apprentice,” he may have violated a federal law that forbids employers from getting rid of employees just because they’re “crazy.”
That’s what an employment-discrimination lawyer claimed yesterday – though it is hard to figure out just how serious he is about the charge.
Morris Fischer, a Baltimore lawyer who specializes in employee discrimination cases, argues that even though “The Apprentice” is just a TV show, the prize is a real job and therefore the American Disabilities Act should apply.
Fischer says that in order to fire her legally, Trump needed to point out something Stacie J – real name: Stacie Jones, who also goes by the name Stacie Upchurch – had actually done wrong.
On last week’s episode, Trump called Stacie J’s teammates into the boardroom and asked about Jones’ allegedly weird behavior.
In the series’ first episode, Jones – a model and owner of a Subway sandwich shop in Harlem – appeared to crack under the stress of the game.
While the team was relaxing after a task, Jones suddenly began to pace around the room consulting a toy fortune teller called a Magic Eightball. She repeatedly insisted that her team had won the challenge and should therefore go “claim our prize.”
All her teammates claimed that Stacie J made them “nervous” and Trump – calling Jones a “loose cannon” – said she had to go.
Jones feebly tried to defend herself in the boardroom by insisting that she was not crazy, but to no avail.
“What he should have done,” Fischer says, “was call those people into a room and say ‘so she’s crazy. What function did she screw up on the job? Did she yell at a customer? Did she show irresponsibility in anyway? Did she forget something important?’ ”
Fischer says he has not contacted Jones and has no plans to represent her. His main aim, he says, is to draw attention to disabilities and job discrimination.
Representatives of Trump and NBC didn’t seem to know how seriously to take Fischer’s criticism.
But late yesterday they issued a sober-sounding statement: “Neither Mr. Trump nor anyone associated with ‘The Apprentice’ engaged in any illegal conduct.”
Jones has given a series of blistering interviews since she was fired and claims that Trump was misled by her teammates. She was unavailable for comment yesterday.