4 ms·

Can these companies still claim that they are "Equal Opportunities Employer" if they openly discriminate against residents of one state?

• humanistbot 5y ago
  As defined by US law, equal opportunity protections are only for the following classes: age, disability, sex, sexual orientation, national origin, race/color, and religion.
  • fallingknife 5y ago
    And on race "equal opportunity" means we can discriminate at will as long as it is against Asians or white people.
    • umanwizard 5y ago
      No it doesn’t. Discriminating against any racial group — not just disadvantaged groups — in hiring is illegal
      • fallingknife 5y ago
        Then how do companies have DEI policies for hiring and promotion?
        • umanwizard 5y ago
          Programs to increase diversity at the top of the hiring funnel (e.g., outreach to universities whose students are mostly from underrepresented groups) are legal, but taking race (or gender) into account for the actual hiring decision is not.
  • dylan604 5y ago
    My religion is of an open and free society. They practice said religion by passing laws that allow for data to be public, protecting what one does at home as private, etc.
    • fennecfoxen 5y ago
      I suppose if you find an employer discriminating against you based on this religion — rather than based on your state of residence or the like — then you are welcome to file an EEOC complaint.
• seanmcdirmid 5y ago
  It’s not like companies can just not open up offices in states whose laws they don’t like, no one is debating that they can’t do that. As for remote positions, it gets trickier: if the state has laws that have scope beyond the state if the company employs a resident, does the company still have a right to avoid employing in that state for positions that do not have fixed office locations? EOE just means you don’t discriminate along some protected classes, employers can still discriminate for legitimate reasons (degree status, citizenship status, work experience, criminal record, etc…). The courts might have to work out whether state residency is a protected class or not.
  • bitexploder 5y ago
    It just becomes so obvious and blatant for these remote roles. There are a lot of other justifications to not have an office in a state.
• fennecfoxen 5y ago
  The EEOC's guidance regarding pre-employment inquiries falls into the following categories, and state residence is not addressed: - Race - Height & Weight - Financial Information - Unemployed Status - Background Checks - Religious Affiliation Or Beliefs - Citizenship - Marital Status, Number Of Children - Gender - Disability - Medical Questions & Examinations
  • thaumasiotes 5y ago
    Excluding candidates from Colorado will have disparate impact in every one of those categories.
    • Broken_Hippo 5y ago
      Sure, but none of those reasons are the reason for excluding Colorado candidates.
      • thaumasiotes 5y ago
        So? The whole idea of disparate impact law is that the reason doesn't matter, only the effect.
        • fennecfoxen 5y ago
          Not so. Disparate impact cases revolve around the reasoning for a rule. A rule which is "reasonably designed and administered to achieve a legitimate business purpose in light of the circumstances," including its potential harm to a protected class, is legitimate. This is why an employer like a fire department, or a moving company, can have fitness qualifications, even though these have a disparate impact on the elderly, while age is a protected class. The EEOC identifies the following criteria to help evaluate the soundness of a rule: - The extent to which the factor is related to the employer's stated business purpose; - The extent to which the employer defined the factor accurately and applied the factor fairly and accurately, including the extent to which managers and supervisors were given guidance or training about how to apply the factor and avoid discrimination; - The extent to which the employer limited supervisors' discretion to assess employees subjectively, particularly where the criteria that the supervisors were asked to evaluate are known to be subject to negative stereotypes; - The extent to which the employer assessed the adverse impact of its employment practice on the protected class; and - The degree of the harm to individuals within the protected class, in terms of both the extent of injury and the numbers of persons adversely affected, and the extent to which the employer took steps to reduce the harm, in light of the burden of undertaking such steps. I'd comment on applying this to Colorado but it is meaningless because there's not actually a disparate impact.