"If we imagine a universe where age isn't a protected class, your professor's secretary would cause just as much trouble -- she'd still lose, and she'd still ha

"If we imagine a universe where age isn't a protected class, your professor's secretary would cause just as much trouble -- she'd still lose, and she'd still have her day in court while doing losing. Unfortunately, it suddenly becomes possible for Foogle to start firing people en masse at age N, simply by fictioning up a few bad performance reviews. But now nobody can prove it, because age isn't a protected class, and will be ignored by the court." Do you not think that part of a person's motivation for suing is their perceived odds of winning? There's still a cost to the accuser to bring a suit.