- Joined
- Sep 13, 2019
Hey, this is thread is going to be about America. I don't know anything about other countries' legal systems, but if you're a foreigner and you have something to say then feel free to say it.
Here is what I know about anti-discrimination laws as they pertain to hiring and the workplace, this is all off the top of my head so if something's wrong please correct me.
Discriminating during hiring processes was first made illegal on the federal level under section 7 of the Civil Rights act of 1964. This law prohibited firms with 15 or more employees from discriminating against job applicants on the basis of sex, race, religion, national origin, or color (which really just meant race; it isn't really relevant anymore). Firms with less than 15 employees were exempt from this law due to the fact that they are usually small business run by single families. It's not reasonable to go to some Pho place run by a family of five Vietnamese immigrants and start asking them where all their black employees are. Religious institutions and private clubs were also exempt. Over time, section seven was expanded to include age, disability, veteran status, sexual orientation, and (most recently) transgender status as things you can't discriminate people against in the hiring process.
Now, there is a way for any firm to defeat most accusations of discrimination. These are called Bona Fide Occupational Qualifications or BFOQ. BFOQs can refer to any skill or attribute of a person that is absolutely necessary for them to be able to do a particular job. Usually this is something straightforward and not related to race. If you run a software company in a city that's 50% black and only 5% of your programmers are black then that's okay as long as none of your hiring practices discriminate against or adversely impact (I'll get to that later) black people. There are also BFOQs that explicitly prohibit certain groups of people from getting certain jobs. One example is PE teachers. In many counties schools employ both male and female PE teachers, because going into boys and girls locker rooms is part of their job. We can't have a man in the girl's locker room vice versa. Another example could be historical reenactments If there is a Chinese guy who has a PHD in the history of the colonial period of New England and genuinely knows more about the Pilgrims then any white man alive today, it would still be okay for a okay for some sort of historical site at Plymouth Rock to deny him a job as a reenactor on the basis of his race, because there were no Chinese people at Plymouth Rock during that period of time.
How do we figure out if a firm is using hiring practices that discriminate against or adversely impact minorities? Well let's first explain what both of those terms mean. Discrimination means that you are openly treating one group unfairly or holding one group to a different standard. Adverse impact means that you are holding both groups to the same standard, but results disproportionately favor one group over another. This is a lot more complicated and we can talk for days about which selection methods adversely impact minorities, which don't, what's fair and what's not fair; but that's a conversation for another time. The important thing is that most discrimination cases brought to the EEOC involve adverse impact, not overt discrimination. There are a few ways that a selection method can be proven have adverse impact, but the one that's used most often and generally regarded as a good rule of thumb is the 4/5 rule. When you boil it down it says that, for a selection method to be proven to have adverse impact, the rate of acceptance for minority applicants must be no less than 4/5 the rate of majority applicants. That means if you have a firm that hires 100 men and 50 woman for a job and 200 men and 100 women applied for that position then your hiring practices can't be found to have adverse impact, because men and women both had a 50% success rate when applying for the job. There are other ways to determine adverse impact, but that's mostly a discussion about math and some of these alternative methods are used in situations were the 4/5 would be unreasonable (like when dealing with really small numbers of people).
Okay, that's a very rough summary of how employment discrimination works in America. Now, should title seven of the Civil Rights act of 1964 be expanded to political beliefs? I think it could help us with some of the social problems we have where there are companies run by very liberal people that shut conservatives out. On the other hand, I don't know how it would be implemented. Should it be based on party identification? Political beliefs? What even is a political belief? Would this create an environment where people would have to disclose their political beliefs to their employers during the application process? Also, how would someone be able to prove that they were discriminated against on the basis of political beliefs (if they were to file an EEOC complaint the burden of proof would initially be on them to prove that discrimination or adverse impact took place)? Could companies argue that certain political beliefs are BFOQs and make all of this pointless?
Here is what I know about anti-discrimination laws as they pertain to hiring and the workplace, this is all off the top of my head so if something's wrong please correct me.
Discriminating during hiring processes was first made illegal on the federal level under section 7 of the Civil Rights act of 1964. This law prohibited firms with 15 or more employees from discriminating against job applicants on the basis of sex, race, religion, national origin, or color (which really just meant race; it isn't really relevant anymore). Firms with less than 15 employees were exempt from this law due to the fact that they are usually small business run by single families. It's not reasonable to go to some Pho place run by a family of five Vietnamese immigrants and start asking them where all their black employees are. Religious institutions and private clubs were also exempt. Over time, section seven was expanded to include age, disability, veteran status, sexual orientation, and (most recently) transgender status as things you can't discriminate people against in the hiring process.
Now, there is a way for any firm to defeat most accusations of discrimination. These are called Bona Fide Occupational Qualifications or BFOQ. BFOQs can refer to any skill or attribute of a person that is absolutely necessary for them to be able to do a particular job. Usually this is something straightforward and not related to race. If you run a software company in a city that's 50% black and only 5% of your programmers are black then that's okay as long as none of your hiring practices discriminate against or adversely impact (I'll get to that later) black people. There are also BFOQs that explicitly prohibit certain groups of people from getting certain jobs. One example is PE teachers. In many counties schools employ both male and female PE teachers, because going into boys and girls locker rooms is part of their job. We can't have a man in the girl's locker room vice versa. Another example could be historical reenactments If there is a Chinese guy who has a PHD in the history of the colonial period of New England and genuinely knows more about the Pilgrims then any white man alive today, it would still be okay for a okay for some sort of historical site at Plymouth Rock to deny him a job as a reenactor on the basis of his race, because there were no Chinese people at Plymouth Rock during that period of time.
How do we figure out if a firm is using hiring practices that discriminate against or adversely impact minorities? Well let's first explain what both of those terms mean. Discrimination means that you are openly treating one group unfairly or holding one group to a different standard. Adverse impact means that you are holding both groups to the same standard, but results disproportionately favor one group over another. This is a lot more complicated and we can talk for days about which selection methods adversely impact minorities, which don't, what's fair and what's not fair; but that's a conversation for another time. The important thing is that most discrimination cases brought to the EEOC involve adverse impact, not overt discrimination. There are a few ways that a selection method can be proven have adverse impact, but the one that's used most often and generally regarded as a good rule of thumb is the 4/5 rule. When you boil it down it says that, for a selection method to be proven to have adverse impact, the rate of acceptance for minority applicants must be no less than 4/5 the rate of majority applicants. That means if you have a firm that hires 100 men and 50 woman for a job and 200 men and 100 women applied for that position then your hiring practices can't be found to have adverse impact, because men and women both had a 50% success rate when applying for the job. There are other ways to determine adverse impact, but that's mostly a discussion about math and some of these alternative methods are used in situations were the 4/5 would be unreasonable (like when dealing with really small numbers of people).
Okay, that's a very rough summary of how employment discrimination works in America. Now, should title seven of the Civil Rights act of 1964 be expanded to political beliefs? I think it could help us with some of the social problems we have where there are companies run by very liberal people that shut conservatives out. On the other hand, I don't know how it would be implemented. Should it be based on party identification? Political beliefs? What even is a political belief? Would this create an environment where people would have to disclose their political beliefs to their employers during the application process? Also, how would someone be able to prove that they were discriminated against on the basis of political beliefs (if they were to file an EEOC complaint the burden of proof would initially be on them to prove that discrimination or adverse impact took place)? Could companies argue that certain political beliefs are BFOQs and make all of this pointless?
