Employment Law
• Objecting to this unfair treatment, LaViolette filed an employment discrimination complaint with the Patent Office.  The Patent Office judged that discrimination against a person for their scientific beliefs was not protected by law.  LaViolette appealed the decision to the EEOC and won.  The EEOC decision LaViolette v. Daley was a landmark case.  It expanded the reach of civil rights law to protect people from being discrimination against on the basis of their scientific beliefs if they could show that those beliefs were connected with their spiritual or religious beliefs.  LaViolette argued that the physical universe was for him sacred since he did not see it as being separate from God, a view shared by Hindus, Budhists, and a number of other religions having a pantheistic outlook.^[74]  This decision had a great impact on employment law.  Numerous human resources newsletters and magazines carried news items about it and an article also appeared in the August 23, 2000 issue of the Washington Post.  It has been discussed in several employment law university classes (e.g., University of Virginia).^[75]  Recently, similar cases have challenged employment law in the UK, such as the case of Tim Nicholson v. Grainger.^[76]

Early Years
• Paul spent his early years in Schenectady, New York. Both of his parents, Fred and Irene LaViolette, were scientists who during World War II had worked on the Manhattan Project.^[77]  Between 1947 and 1963 Paul's father worked as a reactor engineer/physicist at the Knolls Atomic Power Laboratory in Niskayuna.  He was responsible for core instrumentation for the first sodium-cooled nuclear power reactor to be developed for use in submarines and ships.  So at a very early age Paul knew the ins and outs of nuclear reactor operation, isotope formation, and radiation safety.  He had the opportunity to attend open house tours at the Knolls facilities and also at the age of 10 tagged along with my father to attend the 1957 International Atomic Energy Conference in Chicago.  While his father attended lectures on reactor physics, Paul wandered the immense exhibit hall and soon was button holed by reporters.  The next day he wound up appearing in two newspaper stories.^[78]
     LaViolette believes that the fertile intellectual environment that both of his parents provided, and in particular the early mentorship that his father gave him were instrumental in catalyzing his early interest in science and his later ability to think in terms of reaction processes, which played an important role in his development of subquantum kinetics.^[79]  Paul's early hobbies included chemistry, electronics, and rocketry, in which his father took an active advising role and strong interest.  His father was also to take a strong interest in LaViolette's scientific findings spending long hours reading and editing Paul's scientific papers and book manuscripts.  They also would often get involved in long discussions about subquantum kinetics which was one of his father's favorite subjects.