3 ms·

A quick web search finds some answers. eg https://www.spigglelaw.com/employment-blog/employers-affirmative-action-boost-diversity/ https://www.spigglelaw.com/

by lokar 5y ago

A quick web search finds some answers. eg https://www.spigglelaw.com/employment-blog/employers-affirmative-action-boost-diversity/ https://www.spigglelaw.com/employment-blog/employers-affirma... """ Title VII prohibits employers from making employment decisions because of an individual’s skin color, national origin, sex, religion, or race. Therefore, it is illegal to give an applicant an advantage solely because of the applicant’s race. However, this is not always the case. Under United Steelworkers of America v. Weber, an employer may voluntarily implement its own affirmative action plan. However, this is permissible only if the purpose is to remediate past failures to hire minority employees in areas that contain few minorities. Under Executive Order 11246, certain government contractors must have affirmative action policies to identify instances where they are not hiring qualified minorities. Contractors can take steps to fix any such hiring discrepancies. Despite these two major exceptions, employers may not use affirmative action to hire more minority employees solely to increase the diversity of their workforce. As a result, the Fisher case only applies to schools, not employers. """ So, uh, it depends.

Hamuko 5y ago
>However, this is permissible only if the purpose is to remediate past failures to hire minority employees in areas that contain few minorities. Women are obviously not a minority in the US, but does this apply if they're a minority in a particular field (such as engineering)?
- Zababa 5y ago
  Minority is often not used in terms of numbers, but in terms of "privilege scale". In that view, women are less privileged than men, and thus get classified as a minority.
- astura 5y ago
  In this case "minority" refers to the sociological definition, not the mathematical definition.
  - raxxorrax 5y ago
    It should not because sociological definitions are far too indistinct for laws.
emodendroket 5y ago
Well that clears things up!
hwers 5y ago
To me that sounds like sexist hiring is indeed perfectly legal (towards men).
ipnon 5y ago
It seems pretty clear cut to me that if your company hasn't been found guilty of discrimination in the past, then it's illegal for the company to institute "affirmative action." That being said, it's usually the company that receives penalties in these situations, and not individual employees. If a lawsuit is made, and the lawsuit is successful (a big "if" in itself), it's not a guarantee that you will be held personally liable. Ultimately, the whole thing stinks. I have worked in companies before where hiring based on discrimination was applauded. This was because individuals were being judged on the most superficial merits, cogs in a startup machine to be slowly ground into a fine dust. Ask yourself if you think this is a moral thing for a company to do, and if it's moral for you to go along with it. It's easy for talented people to get new jobs in our industry.
- mrkurt 5y ago
  > It seems pretty clear cut to me that if your company hasn't been found guilty of discrimination in the past, then it's illegal for the company to institute "affirmative action." That's not what United Steelworkers v. Weber established though. The supreme court said: > An affirmative action plan has to be (1) necessary (2) aiming to correct a statistical imbalance (3) not result in an absolute bar to hiring non-minorities (4) temporary, with an end date or goal (5) allow flexibility for hiring non-minorities. There's no bar for "has been found guilty in the past".
  - lolinder 5y ago
    You're right, but point 3 means that even under United Steelworkers v. Weber the policy in the original question may be illegal. "Must be female" is an instruction to bar the non-minority completely from this position, so as another comment says it depends on if that bar on complete bars applies to individual positions or whole departments.
    - lokar 5y ago
      Consider you are going to hire 10 mid-career SWEs this year (as a generic pool) and you set aside 2 slots for females, because the current org of 50 is all male.
civilized 5y ago
Not clear to me whether you can mandate that a particular position go to a minority. United Steelworkers says racial preferences are sometimes permissible but cannot be an absolute bar against hiring non-minorities. So the question is whether that requirement applies at the level of individual jobs or only at a higher level (some positions can be reserved for minorities so long as the department or institution isn't exclusively hiring minorities in all positions). The law here seems quite vague and I wonder if the interpretation would depend on the ideological composition of the court and perhaps what they had for breakfast that morning. If I had to guess though, I think the court that decided United Steelworkers would also rule favorably on the legality of the OP's situation, and would apply basically the same principles to do so.
lolinder 5y ago
> So, uh, it depends. Yep. I highly doubt we have enough info in the original question to give legal advice even if any of us were lawyers. We simply don't know enough about the company to know how the courts would see it. My advice to OP: consult a lawyer. The law is fuzzy, and we don't have enough information to give a good answer.
sizzle 5y ago
Are you a lawyer or paralegal? How did you land on the specific cases? Are they cherry picked or how do we know if there is other cases that are newer and set different precedents? I’m honestly curious, I know paralegals will go into some database and search for case law to cite like you did and then build the case arguments with a lawyer.

by lokar 5y ago

Hamuko 5y ago

>However, this is permissible only if the purpose is to remediate past failures to hire minority employees in areas that contain few minorities. Women are obviously not a minority in the US, but does this apply if they're a minority in a particular field (such as engineering)?

Zababa 5y ago
Minority is often not used in terms of numbers, but in terms of "privilege scale". In that view, women are less privileged than men, and thus get classified as a minority.
astura 5y ago
In this case "minority" refers to the sociological definition, not the mathematical definition.
- raxxorrax 5y ago
  It should not because sociological definitions are far too indistinct for laws.

emodendroket 5y ago

Well that clears things up!

hwers 5y ago

To me that sounds like sexist hiring is indeed perfectly legal (towards men).

ipnon 5y ago

It seems pretty clear cut to me that if your company hasn't been found guilty of discrimination in the past, then it's illegal for the company to institute "affirmative action." That being said, it's usually the company that receives penalties in these situations, and not individual employees. If a lawsuit is made, and the lawsuit is successful (a big "if" in itself), it's not a guarantee that you will be held personally liable. Ultimately, the whole thing stinks. I have worked in companies before where hiring based on discrimination was applauded. This was because individuals were being judged on the most superficial merits, cogs in a startup machine to be slowly ground into a fine dust. Ask yourself if you think this is a moral thing for a company to do, and if it's moral for you to go along with it. It's easy for talented people to get new jobs in our industry.

mrkurt 5y ago
> It seems pretty clear cut to me that if your company hasn't been found guilty of discrimination in the past, then it's illegal for the company to institute "affirmative action." That's not what United Steelworkers v. Weber established though. The supreme court said: > An affirmative action plan has to be (1) necessary (2) aiming to correct a statistical imbalance (3) not result in an absolute bar to hiring non-minorities (4) temporary, with an end date or goal (5) allow flexibility for hiring non-minorities. There's no bar for "has been found guilty in the past".
- lolinder 5y ago
  You're right, but point 3 means that even under United Steelworkers v. Weber the policy in the original question may be illegal. "Must be female" is an instruction to bar the non-minority completely from this position, so as another comment says it depends on if that bar on complete bars applies to individual positions or whole departments.
  - lokar 5y ago
    Consider you are going to hire 10 mid-career SWEs this year (as a generic pool) and you set aside 2 slots for females, because the current org of 50 is all male.

civilized 5y ago

Not clear to me whether you can mandate that a particular position go to a minority. United Steelworkers says racial preferences are sometimes permissible but cannot be an absolute bar against hiring non-minorities. So the question is whether that requirement applies at the level of individual jobs or only at a higher level (some positions can be reserved for minorities so long as the department or institution isn't exclusively hiring minorities in all positions). The law here seems quite vague and I wonder if the interpretation would depend on the ideological composition of the court and perhaps what they had for breakfast that morning. If I had to guess though, I think the court that decided United Steelworkers would also rule favorably on the legality of the OP's situation, and would apply basically the same principles to do so.

lolinder 5y ago

> So, uh, it depends. Yep. I highly doubt we have enough info in the original question to give legal advice even if any of us were lawyers. We simply don't know enough about the company to know how the courts would see it. My advice to OP: consult a lawyer. The law is fuzzy, and we don't have enough information to give a good answer.

sizzle 5y ago

Are you a lawyer or paralegal? How did you land on the specific cases? Are they cherry picked or how do we know if there is other cases that are newer and set different precedents? I’m honestly curious, I know paralegals will go into some database and search for case law to cite like you did and then build the case arguments with a lawyer.