5 ms·

> Most likely they struggled because the legal language in policies was ambiguous on how to handle the situation, therefore opening the room for the manager to

> Most likely they struggled because the legal language in policies was ambiguous on how to handle the situation, therefore opening the room for the manager to pursue action against the company for consequences for their behavior. How? Do you really think their language specified that discrimination could only happen from white people to minorities?

richiebful1 4y ago
My understanding of the situation is that Western countries/companies don't usually have protected class status on basis of caste. Those protections exist for race, gender, age etc.
- adamsmith143 4y ago
  Ok are there also specific legal protections for Eye color, Hair Color, presence of Freckles, etc? Does every possible way to discriminate need to be clearly spelled out for it to be illegal?
  - shkkmo 4y ago
    No, there are not. (In the USA) You are legally allowed to discriminate based on non-protected classes as long as the non-protected class is not being used as a proxy for a protected class.
    - biztos 4y ago
      I was trying to find out if you could really discriminate based on freckliness and before my attention span terminated I found this interesting list: https://www.ncsl.org/research/labor-and-employment/employment-discrimination.aspx https://www.ncsl.org/research/labor-and-employment/employmen... [Edit/spoiler: does not cover freckles!]
  - pc86 4y ago
    Your question seems to stem from the belief that discrimination is illegal, which it is not. Discrimination is completely legal, including in hiring practices, as long as you're not discriminating against a protected class (either directly or by proxy). That's why the classes are explicitly enumerated, because if it's not in that list you can discriminate based on it. If you want to open a shop and put a sign out that says "No customers with blue eyes permitted" you're completely within your right to do so. But let's say you discriminated against some other form of eyes, that maybe disproportionately affected groups of a particular race or national origin, that would be illegal.
    - jefftk 4y ago
      Quibbling with your hypothetical: blue eyes are disproportionately possessed by people of a particular race
      - pc86 4y ago
        But most people of that race have non-blue eyes.
        jefftk 4y ago
        Still probably enough to fall under https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Disparate_impact https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Disparate_impact
  - MichaelCollins 4y ago
    Discrimination against eye color would definitely be forbidden as discrimination against race; you can't ban everybody except those with blue eyes without having a racially disparate impact. This is probably true of those other physical characteristics too. But speaking more generally, the principle in America is that if something isn't forbidden, then it is permitted. You could probably get away with some nonsense like "Don't hire anybody who owns a red car, because red car owners are too impulsive and hot headed"
    - saalweachter 4y ago
      Thinking about it, astrological sign is probably safe; it shouldn't correlate with any protected class.
      - thaeli 4y ago
        Yeah, I can't think of anywhere in the US this would overlap with a protected class - so long as it was consistently applied. If someone says they discriminate based on your sign, it would warrant a very close look to be sure they aren't actually only checking the birthdates of people of certain protected categories.. this sort of red herring discrimination does happen, but if it was truly and consistently based on someone's sign, that would likely be defensible everywhere in the US.
    - ummonk 4y ago
      Yes, and by the same token, discrimination on the basis of caste would likely be judged to have a disparate impact based on nationality, race, and religion (against Hindus / Indians), since such discrimination won't impact people of other races. We just don't have actual precedent about it yet, but any company that doesn't take action over it is playing with fire.
  - thaeli 4y ago
    In practice, in the US, the categories you listed have all been used as proxies for race and/or ethnicity. Making a claim of discrimination based on proxy characteristics isn't always clear cut, but it sticks often enough to make companies cautious of it. But yeah, fundamentally, in the American system, something needs to either explicitly or implicitly be a protected class. Otherwise it's legal to discriminate based on that characteristic. Plus the list of protected classes varies by jurisdiction.
saalweachter 4y ago
I'm guessing they weren't sure whether caste was a protected class. Discrimination in law revolves around protected classes (race, religion, national origin, age and sex are the "big five" in the US, and subsequent acts and decisions have added sexual orientation/gender identity, familial status, pregnancy, disability, veteran status, and genetic information). If you act on the basis of that, someone can, well, make a federal case out of it. On the other hand, if you discriminated on the basis of eye color -- pretending for a moment it wasn't correlated with race -- you might be a shitty manager, but it wouldn't be a legal issue.
- abduhl 4y ago
  Why is caste not a subset of national origin or race? Do Indians who discriminate on the basis of caste also discriminate against non-Indians of a lower caste, or is it solely confined to other Indians? If not directly a protected class, why would this not clearly be a disparate impact type of case?
  - elteto 4y ago
    It’s not that it is or it isn’t. The US legal system is based on precedent so if there’s little history of previous cases where this was decided then it’s very hard to know how it will go in court. Everyone loves citing precedent but nobody wants to be the first one to try and set it.
  - saalweachter 4y ago
    It might be! I'm not a lawyer, and have no idea if there is already precedent in the US specifically regarding castes, but there is a motion that national origin covers ancestry. It's entirely possible that the legal department in the story above thought it was a cut and dry case and that's why they pushed hard to shut it down before it became one.
    - ummonk 4y ago
      Yeah it sounds like legal saw it as cut and dry at least that he could be fired (and possibly that they also had a requirement to do so), while HR folks were making nonsensical arguments of the kind we're seeing here from non-lawyers.
duped 4y ago
It's an open legal question for state and federal courts today, so it makes sense companies are struggling with it. The legal language is ambiguous at best, and corporate lawyers/HR exist to mitigate exposure and not take a moral high ground. https://news.bloomberglaw.com/daily-labor-report/u-s-civil-rights-agency-urged-to-recognize-caste-discrimination https://news.bloomberglaw.com/daily-labor-report/u-s-civil-r...
Bolkan 4y ago
Both the manager and the victim were part of the same minority as far as the law was concerned. /IANAL

richiebful1 4y ago

My understanding of the situation is that Western countries/companies don't usually have protected class status on basis of caste. Those protections exist for race, gender, age etc.

adamsmith143 4y ago
Ok are there also specific legal protections for Eye color, Hair Color, presence of Freckles, etc? Does every possible way to discriminate need to be clearly spelled out for it to be illegal?
- shkkmo 4y ago
  No, there are not. (In the USA) You are legally allowed to discriminate based on non-protected classes as long as the non-protected class is not being used as a proxy for a protected class.
  - biztos 4y ago
    I was trying to find out if you could really discriminate based on freckliness and before my attention span terminated I found this interesting list: https://www.ncsl.org/research/labor-and-employment/employment-discrimination.aspx https://www.ncsl.org/research/labor-and-employment/employmen... [Edit/spoiler: does not cover freckles!]
- pc86 4y ago
  Your question seems to stem from the belief that discrimination is illegal, which it is not. Discrimination is completely legal, including in hiring practices, as long as you're not discriminating against a protected class (either directly or by proxy). That's why the classes are explicitly enumerated, because if it's not in that list you can discriminate based on it. If you want to open a shop and put a sign out that says "No customers with blue eyes permitted" you're completely within your right to do so. But let's say you discriminated against some other form of eyes, that maybe disproportionately affected groups of a particular race or national origin, that would be illegal.
  - jefftk 4y ago
    Quibbling with your hypothetical: blue eyes are disproportionately possessed by people of a particular race
    - pc86 4y ago
      But most people of that race have non-blue eyes.
      - jefftk 4y ago
        Still probably enough to fall under https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Disparate_impact https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Disparate_impact
- MichaelCollins 4y ago
  Discrimination against eye color would definitely be forbidden as discrimination against race; you can't ban everybody except those with blue eyes without having a racially disparate impact. This is probably true of those other physical characteristics too. But speaking more generally, the principle in America is that if something isn't forbidden, then it is permitted. You could probably get away with some nonsense like "Don't hire anybody who owns a red car, because red car owners are too impulsive and hot headed"
  - saalweachter 4y ago
    Thinking about it, astrological sign is probably safe; it shouldn't correlate with any protected class.
    - thaeli 4y ago
      Yeah, I can't think of anywhere in the US this would overlap with a protected class - so long as it was consistently applied. If someone says they discriminate based on your sign, it would warrant a very close look to be sure they aren't actually only checking the birthdates of people of certain protected categories.. this sort of red herring discrimination does happen, but if it was truly and consistently based on someone's sign, that would likely be defensible everywhere in the US.
  - ummonk 4y ago
    Yes, and by the same token, discrimination on the basis of caste would likely be judged to have a disparate impact based on nationality, race, and religion (against Hindus / Indians), since such discrimination won't impact people of other races. We just don't have actual precedent about it yet, but any company that doesn't take action over it is playing with fire.
- thaeli 4y ago
  In practice, in the US, the categories you listed have all been used as proxies for race and/or ethnicity. Making a claim of discrimination based on proxy characteristics isn't always clear cut, but it sticks often enough to make companies cautious of it. But yeah, fundamentally, in the American system, something needs to either explicitly or implicitly be a protected class. Otherwise it's legal to discriminate based on that characteristic. Plus the list of protected classes varies by jurisdiction.

saalweachter 4y ago

I'm guessing they weren't sure whether caste was a protected class. Discrimination in law revolves around protected classes (race, religion, national origin, age and sex are the "big five" in the US, and subsequent acts and decisions have added sexual orientation/gender identity, familial status, pregnancy, disability, veteran status, and genetic information). If you act on the basis of that, someone can, well, make a federal case out of it. On the other hand, if you discriminated on the basis of eye color -- pretending for a moment it wasn't correlated with race -- you might be a shitty manager, but it wouldn't be a legal issue.

abduhl 4y ago
Why is caste not a subset of national origin or race? Do Indians who discriminate on the basis of caste also discriminate against non-Indians of a lower caste, or is it solely confined to other Indians? If not directly a protected class, why would this not clearly be a disparate impact type of case?
- elteto 4y ago
  It’s not that it is or it isn’t. The US legal system is based on precedent so if there’s little history of previous cases where this was decided then it’s very hard to know how it will go in court. Everyone loves citing precedent but nobody wants to be the first one to try and set it.
- saalweachter 4y ago
  It might be! I'm not a lawyer, and have no idea if there is already precedent in the US specifically regarding castes, but there is a motion that national origin covers ancestry. It's entirely possible that the legal department in the story above thought it was a cut and dry case and that's why they pushed hard to shut it down before it became one.
  - ummonk 4y ago
    Yeah it sounds like legal saw it as cut and dry at least that he could be fired (and possibly that they also had a requirement to do so), while HR folks were making nonsensical arguments of the kind we're seeing here from non-lawyers.

duped 4y ago

It's an open legal question for state and federal courts today, so it makes sense companies are struggling with it. The legal language is ambiguous at best, and corporate lawyers/HR exist to mitigate exposure and not take a moral high ground. https://news.bloomberglaw.com/daily-labor-report/u-s-civil-rights-agency-urged-to-recognize-caste-discrimination https://news.bloomberglaw.com/daily-labor-report/u-s-civil-r...

Bolkan 4y ago

Both the manager and the victim were part of the same minority as far as the law was concerned. /IANAL