You are clearly completely incorrect... Like so obviously incorrect I'm almost shocked to see such a comment here on HN. Making discrimination illegal sends a

You are clearly completely incorrect... Like so obviously incorrect I'm almost shocked to see such a comment here on HN. Making discrimination illegal sends a social signal that the behavior is bad and shouldn't be tolerated. It emboldens those who are slightly anti-discrimination (but part of the majority group) to speak out against it instead of following the herd. The few cases where actual discrimination cases are prosecuted serve to warn others that there are negative consequences to bad behavior. Over time this change in attitude transfers to younger generations that see it as normal. That leads to fewer and fewer racist/biased people in positions of power. Often institutionalized racism and sexism are enforced by a small group of busybodies... Take Cory Booker's family story where the Real Estate agent tried to enforce a "white only" town but once they bought the house (by using a white stand-in couple) all the neighbors were totally fine with a black family moving in. It took only one bad actor to effectively segregate an entire town. I have a suspicion (but no proof) that this is generally the case - a vocal minority wants to enforce the status quo but the majority would be fine with change. We can't stop some people from discriminating, but we can declare that we as a society think that is bad behavior and that declaration alone has positive consequences.