4 ms·

What I think is odd is that "protected classes" language is a highly us-legal-system-centric concept.

tenaciousDaniel 5y ago
Even more than US-centric, the commenters in the GH discussion explicitly refer to California laws. The internet is not California, regardless of what the technologists who live there would like to believe. (to be clear, I'm completely in favor of protecting people from harassment and abuse, though I strongly disagree with reserving that only to legally protected classes).
- zuminator 5y ago
  Everyone is part of a legally protected class. For example, you oughtn't discriminate on the basis of marital status. Regardless of who you are you have a marital status, either single, married, divorced, widowed, etc. Or you ought not discriminate on the basis of race. Whether it be white, mixed race, ginger, etc. So while it might be the case that being a member of a minority is a particular instance of a protected class, we all fit into various classes, and the idea is that none of us should face harassment or discrimination based upon our membership therein, regardless of what it may be.
  - tenaciousDaniel 5y ago
    They're part of a class but no, not everyone is "legally" protected. Short people are not a legally protected class, hence why it's possible to have height restrictions in certain employment roles (in the US at least). But that kind of underscores why "legally protected class" really doesn't make sense for a CoC. Like yeah short people aren't legally protected...but any good CoC should prohibit harassment and abuse against people for their height. Obviously.
    - lazide 5y ago
      As someone else mentioned in another thread - it depends. There are definitely legal protections for being a CERTAIN KIND of short, for instance (such as Achondroplasia). The law focuses on reasonableness of accommodations and the actual job needs, so for instance you can't discriminate based on height if it is a legitimate medical condition and there is the option of reasonable accommodations - say it's a cashier job, and stool would be perfectly fine and adequately allow them to do the job. If there is no reasonable accomodations, say because the job is not being a cashier, but being a basketball player, and stools or other devices don't help adequately enough to be competitive, then you could discriminate all you wanted on that condition. The issue of course is a lot of people can't untangle their own prejudices and ideas of what it takes to do a job or who should be doing it enough to even legitimately articulate the ACTUAL requirements to do a job, and tend to spew a bunch of half though out stereotypes, so they run afoul of it pretty regularly. And the gov't (and labor market) MOSTLY lets them unless they're pretty big. Putting 'legally protected classes' in the CoC is pretty ridiculous, since there are a ton of different definitions depending on context.
      - dnautics 5y ago
        > There are definitely legal protections for being a CERTAIN KIND of short, for instance (such as Achondroplasia). Completely besides the point and distracting.
        lazide 5y ago
        Hardly - 26% [https://www.cdc.gov/ncbddd/disabilityandhealth/infographic-disability-impacts-all.html https://www.cdc.gov/ncbddd/disabilityandhealth/infographic-d...] of Americans have a recognized medical disability. Nearly that many are women of child bearing age, and can be discriminated against due to pregnancy status. 34% of Americans are over 50 years old (and officially protected as such). You would be surprised how few people do not have a clear type of legal protection as part of some class - pretty much just fit, healthy, 18-40 something males really.
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zuminator 5y ago
The exact phrase "protected class" is particular to the US but the concept isn't particularly so. The UK has "protected characteristics," Canada has "protected grounds," as does the European Union in Article 14 of the Convention on Human Rights. Australia has "protected attributes." Frankly it's pretty US-centric to imagine that a general human rights concept such as protected classes of people is US-centric.
- thiht 5y ago
  To be fair I think « protected class » specifically refers to the US definition here. Hence the choice of words. The CoC doesn’t use « protected characteristics » or « protected grounds ». But including this filter in itself is weird. Why would they specifically talk about harassment on protected classes instead of just harassment? Does it mean someone who’s not a protected class can be harassed and no one will lift a finger? That seems overly toxic and exclusive to me.

Even more than US-centric, the commenters in the GH discussion explicitly refer to California laws. The internet is not California, regardless of what the technologists who live there would like to believe. (to be clear, I'm completely in favor of protecting people from harassment and abuse, though I strongly disagree with reserving that only to legally protected classes).

zuminator 5y ago
Everyone is part of a legally protected class. For example, you oughtn't discriminate on the basis of marital status. Regardless of who you are you have a marital status, either single, married, divorced, widowed, etc. Or you ought not discriminate on the basis of race. Whether it be white, mixed race, ginger, etc. So while it might be the case that being a member of a minority is a particular instance of a protected class, we all fit into various classes, and the idea is that none of us should face harassment or discrimination based upon our membership therein, regardless of what it may be.
- tenaciousDaniel 5y ago
  They're part of a class but no, not everyone is "legally" protected. Short people are not a legally protected class, hence why it's possible to have height restrictions in certain employment roles (in the US at least). But that kind of underscores why "legally protected class" really doesn't make sense for a CoC. Like yeah short people aren't legally protected...but any good CoC should prohibit harassment and abuse against people for their height. Obviously.
  - lazide 5y ago
    As someone else mentioned in another thread - it depends. There are definitely legal protections for being a CERTAIN KIND of short, for instance (such as Achondroplasia). The law focuses on reasonableness of accommodations and the actual job needs, so for instance you can't discriminate based on height if it is a legitimate medical condition and there is the option of reasonable accommodations - say it's a cashier job, and stool would be perfectly fine and adequately allow them to do the job. If there is no reasonable accomodations, say because the job is not being a cashier, but being a basketball player, and stools or other devices don't help adequately enough to be competitive, then you could discriminate all you wanted on that condition. The issue of course is a lot of people can't untangle their own prejudices and ideas of what it takes to do a job or who should be doing it enough to even legitimately articulate the ACTUAL requirements to do a job, and tend to spew a bunch of half though out stereotypes, so they run afoul of it pretty regularly. And the gov't (and labor market) MOSTLY lets them unless they're pretty big. Putting 'legally protected classes' in the CoC is pretty ridiculous, since there are a ton of different definitions depending on context.
    - dnautics 5y ago
      > There are definitely legal protections for being a CERTAIN KIND of short, for instance (such as Achondroplasia). Completely besides the point and distracting.
      - lazide 5y ago
        Hardly - 26% [https://www.cdc.gov/ncbddd/disabilityandhealth/infographic-disability-impacts-all.html https://www.cdc.gov/ncbddd/disabilityandhealth/infographic-d...] of Americans have a recognized medical disability. Nearly that many are women of child bearing age, and can be discriminated against due to pregnancy status. 34% of Americans are over 50 years old (and officially protected as such). You would be surprised how few people do not have a clear type of legal protection as part of some class - pretty much just fit, healthy, 18-40 something males really.
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zuminator 5y ago

The exact phrase "protected class" is particular to the US but the concept isn't particularly so. The UK has "protected characteristics," Canada has "protected grounds," as does the European Union in Article 14 of the Convention on Human Rights. Australia has "protected attributes." Frankly it's pretty US-centric to imagine that a general human rights concept such as protected classes of people is US-centric.

thiht 5y ago
To be fair I think « protected class » specifically refers to the US definition here. Hence the choice of words. The CoC doesn’t use « protected characteristics » or « protected grounds ». But including this filter in itself is weird. Why would they specifically talk about harassment on protected classes instead of just harassment? Does it mean someone who’s not a protected class can be harassed and no one will lift a finger? That seems overly toxic and exclusive to me.