Why isn’t the proper public policy to treat people as individuals?
Let’s compare two different types of employment discrimination law (in the US). For simplicity, let’s ignore the burden of proof.
Racial Discrimination: It is illegal to consider an employee’s (or potential employee’s) race when making an employment decision. If a person is fired, but would not have been fired if the person were a different race, the employer has committed wrongful termination. (Substitute “hire,” “promote,” or basically any other employment decision—the rule is unchanged).
Disability Discrimination: First, the disabled employee must be able to perform the job, with or without accommodations. Then, the employer must make reasonable (but not unreasonable) accommodations.
I think it is reasonably clear that disability discrimination law is more individualized. If there really were differences based on race / ethnicity, then I think racial discrimination law ought to look more like disability discrimination law. But I think there aren’t such differences, so I think the law as written is basically right.
If genetics based discrimination leads to $X million lost in strikes and rioting, shoulnd’t that be taken into account?
Seems like this is a question of baseline. Who said we should respect rioting? Or rioting is likely to result from treating people differently based on their actual genetic differences.
Just to be clear, I don’t practice employment law. I practice a very narrow kind of child disability law. Reading this post does not make me your lawyer.
Let’s compare two different types of employment discrimination law (in the US). For simplicity, let’s ignore the burden of proof.
Racial Discrimination: It is illegal to consider an employee’s (or potential employee’s) race when making an employment decision. If a person is fired, but would not have been fired if the person were a different race, the employer has committed wrongful termination. (Substitute “hire,” “promote,” or basically any other employment decision—the rule is unchanged).
Disability Discrimination: First, the disabled employee must be able to perform the job, with or without accommodations. Then, the employer must make reasonable (but not unreasonable) accommodations.
I think it is reasonably clear that disability discrimination law is more individualized. If there really were differences based on race / ethnicity, then I think racial discrimination law ought to look more like disability discrimination law. But I think there aren’t such differences, so I think the law as written is basically right.
Seems like this is a question of baseline. Who said we should respect rioting? Or rioting is likely to result from treating people differently based on their actual genetic differences.
Just to be clear, I don’t practice employment law. I practice a very narrow kind of child disability law. Reading this post does not make me your lawyer.