4 ms·

Why is it a 'perfect' counter-example against my description if it involves beards and job applications when I was talking about income and applying to universi

by lalos 8y ago

Why is it a 'perfect' counter-example against my description if it involves beards and job applications when I was talking about income and applying to universities? Is that perfect? Get me counter-example where at least income was discussed as the discriminatory factor or do you think a lawyer would provide the case you mentioned as precedence on this other case? Be more humble, your example just moves the goalpost to provide a contrarian point of view, its far from perfect.

eesmith 8y ago
I specifically said that these cases were not comparable because they are covered by different civil rights laws. My objection is to your use of "I don't think income is a protected class, therefore the government shouldn't care". "Protected class" has a wider meaning in civil rights law. I pointed to other cases where seemingly generic prohibitions, which are not themselves protected classes, have a sufficiently high correlation with a prohibited class that the courts have ruled that the generic prohibition (no shaving, height requirement, clothing styles, and more) is a violation of civil rights law. Some of these are almost certainly portable to enrollment policies. A college which receives federal funding won't be able to use a genetic test to prohibit those carrying the sickle cell anemia mutation, because of its strong correlation with race. So while I think there are certainly valid objections to jakelazaroff's original statement "Preference for children of donors and legacies are such blatantly racist admission policies", and I agree that income is not and should not be a protected class, and I agree that there can be bona fide business reasons to have a preference for wealthy people, the case law is pretty solid that discrimination on X where X is not a protected class can still result in the government caring.
- lalos 8y ago
  We're on the same page then. Thanks for your explanation, I misunderstood your other comments.

by lalos 8y ago

eesmith 8y ago

I specifically said that these cases were not comparable because they are covered by different civil rights laws. My objection is to your use of "I don't think income is a protected class, therefore the government shouldn't care". "Protected class" has a wider meaning in civil rights law. I pointed to other cases where seemingly generic prohibitions, which are not themselves protected classes, have a sufficiently high correlation with a prohibited class that the courts have ruled that the generic prohibition (no shaving, height requirement, clothing styles, and more) is a violation of civil rights law. Some of these are almost certainly portable to enrollment policies. A college which receives federal funding won't be able to use a genetic test to prohibit those carrying the sickle cell anemia mutation, because of its strong correlation with race. So while I think there are certainly valid objections to jakelazaroff's original statement "Preference for children of donors and legacies are such blatantly racist admission policies", and I agree that income is not and should not be a protected class, and I agree that there can be bona fide business reasons to have a preference for wealthy people, the case law is pretty solid that discrimination on X where X is not a protected class can still result in the government caring.

lalos 8y ago
We're on the same page then. Thanks for your explanation, I misunderstood your other comments.