4 ms·

Maybe somebody can clarify this for me. It seems that there is a difference in American and European laws about discrimination, where U.S. has a concept of prot

by js8 6y ago

Maybe somebody can clarify this for me. It seems that there is a difference in American and European laws about discrimination, where U.S. has a concept of protected groups (i.e. they explicitly enumerate who is not to be discriminated), while EU has laws based on equality of the groups (or more generally, humans). It seems to me that the American system is more antagonistic, in the sense it really prefers some groups (or classes) to another. And this causes more issues (and more resentment). Am I understanding this right?

tathougies 6y ago
Can you explain the EU law? If a man applied to be a girl's PE teacher that would be in a locker room, is that allowed? Certainly not, right? The US allows discrimination in general as long as it's not based on membership in certain groups, unless such membership is germaine to the job. So you could limit gender in my PE teacher example, but you can't for a crossing guard (because presumably, anyone can be a crossing guard but sex matters for PE teaching). Used PE teaching because I can't think of a better example.
- justaguy88 6y ago
  Why would any PE teacher enter the locker room, that seems odd regardless of gender.
  - tathougies 6y ago
    That was my attempt at a good example. Certainly you must admit there are occupations where gender matters? Like prison guard?
- slim 6y ago
  A better example would be casting for a film. You can definitely cast only Aryan men for a Nazi role. That would be reasonable and the law permits that. Generally speaking cases of discrimination are settled in court and judges have the latitude to, well, judge.
systemvoltage 6y ago
You can read the US law yourself: https://www.eeoc.gov/statutes/title-vii-civil-rights-act-1964 https://www.eeoc.gov/statutes/title-vii-civil-rights-act-196...
dcolkitt 6y ago
One underlying difference is that the US has at-will employment. Meaning an employer can terminate employee for any reason, except specific no-no reasons. In the US, it's perfectly legal to fire someone, just cause you think their haircut is stupid, they stole your girlfriend, they root for a sports team you don't like, or you just plain don't like them. I don't want to over-generalize, because Europe is a collection of many different legal systems, but in general European employees can only be fired for just cause. That is instead of listing why you can't fire someone, they enumerate specific reasons you can terminate an employee. Therefore to protect against discrimination, the American system requires listing protected classes. The European system does not, because they simply omit "discrimination" from the list of acceptable just causes for termination. However in the US discrimination, i.e. employment termination for reasons unrelated to job performance, is perfectly legal. As long as it doesn't coincide with officially prohibited types of discrimination. Discriminating against employees on the basis of race, sex, or religion is a big problem. Discriminating on the basis of sports fandom, haircut or taste in music is perfectly legal.
- davidgay 6y ago
  > Discriminating on the basis of sports fandom, haircut or taste in music is perfectly legal. IIUC, correlation of any of those with any of the protected classes will land you in trouble though (and I would guess at least the second two from your list are definitely so correlated). As a result, again IIUC, all the large companies(+) follow, in practice, a European-style approach: there has to be a well-documented, based on some clearly-non-discriminatory criteria (++), reason for firing you (hence performance-improvement-plans, etc, etc). [+] large companies == worth suing - again IIUC small companies can basically do what you say [++] I think that still ends up being easier than firing people in many European countries, though
- jcheng 6y ago
  That makes a lot of sense for termination. How about hiring? Do you know if the European system specifies what attributes are and aren’t allowed to be considered when it comes to hiring employees?
  - 6y ago

by js8 6y ago

tathougies 6y ago

Can you explain the EU law? If a man applied to be a girl's PE teacher that would be in a locker room, is that allowed? Certainly not, right? The US allows discrimination in general as long as it's not based on membership in certain groups, unless such membership is germaine to the job. So you could limit gender in my PE teacher example, but you can't for a crossing guard (because presumably, anyone can be a crossing guard but sex matters for PE teaching). Used PE teaching because I can't think of a better example.

justaguy88 6y ago
Why would any PE teacher enter the locker room, that seems odd regardless of gender.
- tathougies 6y ago
  That was my attempt at a good example. Certainly you must admit there are occupations where gender matters? Like prison guard?
slim 6y ago
A better example would be casting for a film. You can definitely cast only Aryan men for a Nazi role. That would be reasonable and the law permits that. Generally speaking cases of discrimination are settled in court and judges have the latitude to, well, judge.

systemvoltage 6y ago

You can read the US law yourself: https://www.eeoc.gov/statutes/title-vii-civil-rights-act-1964 https://www.eeoc.gov/statutes/title-vii-civil-rights-act-196...

dcolkitt 6y ago

One underlying difference is that the US has at-will employment. Meaning an employer can terminate employee for any reason, except specific no-no reasons. In the US, it's perfectly legal to fire someone, just cause you think their haircut is stupid, they stole your girlfriend, they root for a sports team you don't like, or you just plain don't like them. I don't want to over-generalize, because Europe is a collection of many different legal systems, but in general European employees can only be fired for just cause. That is instead of listing why you can't fire someone, they enumerate specific reasons you can terminate an employee. Therefore to protect against discrimination, the American system requires listing protected classes. The European system does not, because they simply omit "discrimination" from the list of acceptable just causes for termination. However in the US discrimination, i.e. employment termination for reasons unrelated to job performance, is perfectly legal. As long as it doesn't coincide with officially prohibited types of discrimination. Discriminating against employees on the basis of race, sex, or religion is a big problem. Discriminating on the basis of sports fandom, haircut or taste in music is perfectly legal.

davidgay 6y ago
> Discriminating on the basis of sports fandom, haircut or taste in music is perfectly legal. IIUC, correlation of any of those with any of the protected classes will land you in trouble though (and I would guess at least the second two from your list are definitely so correlated). As a result, again IIUC, all the large companies(+) follow, in practice, a European-style approach: there has to be a well-documented, based on some clearly-non-discriminatory criteria (++), reason for firing you (hence performance-improvement-plans, etc, etc). [+] large companies == worth suing - again IIUC small companies can basically do what you say [++] I think that still ends up being easier than firing people in many European countries, though
jcheng 6y ago
That makes a lot of sense for termination. How about hiring? Do you know if the European system specifies what attributes are and aren’t allowed to be considered when it comes to hiring employees?
- 6y ago