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In the US, Federal Law, and the law of all the US states that I know about, forbid discriminating for reasons of age against people over forty. I'm puzzled as

In the US, Federal Law, and the law of all the US states that I know about, forbid discriminating for reasons of age against people over forty. I'm puzzled as to how Zuckerberg could have been so ignorant as to say such a thing. All I would have to do is to apply to Facebook and I'd have a good case - it's pretty obvious from my resume that I'm olde and greyye. That's not to say such discrimination does not happen, actually it's quite prevalent. It's quite common that I am asked to come in for an onsite interview, but the instant they see me in person, the way they talk it's plainly apparent that I'm not getting the job - before I even say anything. I really do have grey hair, you see, and wrinkles.

dalke 12y ago
When you are worth a bajillion dollars you tend to think your opinions are right. You would have to show that your rejection from Facebook was due to age bias. Just because the head of a company makes a statement like that doesn't mean that the company carries out those actions. So no, you would not have a good case. Did you even read the first link I gave? It explains the situation; absurd requirements are used to reject people based on hidden criteria, in addition for being a strategy for lowering pay. > Technology companies can probably solve their “shortage” by discarding hidden and/or unconscious non-technical criteria as well as discarding excessively narrow “purple squirrel” technical requirements in hiring software engineers and other STEM professionals. Doing this will save them time and money (possibly $19 billion in Facebook’s case) and even make the world a better, fairer place at the same time. :-)
- MichaelCrawford 12y ago
  That's what "Discovery" and "Deposition" are for. In the United States - specifically the US, I don't know about other countries - the Constitutional right to not incriminate oneself only applies to criminal procedures, not to civil ones. So all I would have to do is put Zuckerberg - or whoever I think may have made the decision not to hire me - under oath in a deposition, then ask them directly whether the didn't hire me as a result of my age. If they perjure themselves, they would do hard time in prison. Now there are people who will lie in depositions, or on the witness stand before a jury, so we have discovery. I would just say "Give me all of your email" and they would have to - or again, they would go to prison. I myself have Amazon cold for violating the Americans with Disabilities Act. I have two very prominent links at the top of every single page on my website, to essays about my mental illness. Amazon's HR was all over me like a cheap suit until I asked them to have a look at my site. Within the hour I received an email that informed me I would not be getting an interview. I myself am reluctant to file an ADA complaint, what I would rather do is to address the problem by writing more essays. However, were my writing to have any effect, that would only happen very slowly. I might file that complaint, as it would help other mentally ill people get work. The reason I work as a coder, and not a physicist, is for the specific reason that computer programming "accomodates" my mental illness in a way that academia does not. That is, I can be floridly paranoid, even hallucinating - and I do hallucinate from time to time - yet I can still write really good software.
  - dalke 12y ago
    You are making things up and don't understand how the legal system works. The immediate response from Facebook will be that you have no grounds for your lawsuit: you have no evidence of age or disability discrimination, only conjecture, they decline to hire many applicants, and there are legitimate reasons for not going forward with hiring you. Such as they found a better candidate. Even under Reid v. Google, a stray remark like this only helps if it's part of a larger picture. It cannot be used on its own, because Zuckerberg wasn't part of your hiring process. The comment was made years ago, and under EEOC you have less than a year before you can file for discrimination. (The Supreme Court of California decision in Reid points out that Brewer v. Quaker State Oil Refining Corp used statements that were two years old, but that's the most extreme example. Six years is unreasonable.) And in a deposition you cannot ask for "all of your email". Otherwise people would abuse the system and sue a company under any pretext in order to get all email, to spy on the internal operations of the company.
    - MichaelCrawford 12y ago
      Actually I think it's _you_ who don't understand how the legal system works. When one is the respondent in a civil lawsuit, one has to depose under oath, and one must supply what is requested in discovery. Yes, the respondent can ask that a judge quash a discovery subpeona, with the usual argument being that it's "just a fishing expedition". However, given Zuckerberg's adamant insistence that young people are smarter, and that no one at all should hire anyone over the age of thirty, it would not be hard to convince a judge to force Facebook to hand over all of its emails.
      - dalke 12y ago
        Has Zuckerberg said anything about the matter in the last 5 years? If not, then you have no standing, and you have no legal power to compel FB to do anything for you. Legal precedent is against you, and I quoted a California Supreme Court case which went into the details for both California and US anti-discrimination law. Anti-discrimination laws give you 180 calendar days from the day the discrimination took place (or more depending on state or local laws, but not more than a year). You cannot sue over one even that happened that long ago. If so, then show me an example of how Zuckerberg continues to insist on that belief. I have found nothing beyond 2007. And kindly point out in the EEOC guidelines where there's a violation of the law.

dalke 12y ago

When you are worth a bajillion dollars you tend to think your opinions are right. You would have to show that your rejection from Facebook was due to age bias. Just because the head of a company makes a statement like that doesn't mean that the company carries out those actions. So no, you would not have a good case. Did you even read the first link I gave? It explains the situation; absurd requirements are used to reject people based on hidden criteria, in addition for being a strategy for lowering pay. > Technology companies can probably solve their “shortage” by discarding hidden and/or unconscious non-technical criteria as well as discarding excessively narrow “purple squirrel” technical requirements in hiring software engineers and other STEM professionals. Doing this will save them time and money (possibly $19 billion in Facebook’s case) and even make the world a better, fairer place at the same time. :-)

MichaelCrawford 12y ago
That's what "Discovery" and "Deposition" are for. In the United States - specifically the US, I don't know about other countries - the Constitutional right to not incriminate oneself only applies to criminal procedures, not to civil ones. So all I would have to do is put Zuckerberg - or whoever I think may have made the decision not to hire me - under oath in a deposition, then ask them directly whether the didn't hire me as a result of my age. If they perjure themselves, they would do hard time in prison. Now there are people who will lie in depositions, or on the witness stand before a jury, so we have discovery. I would just say "Give me all of your email" and they would have to - or again, they would go to prison. I myself have Amazon cold for violating the Americans with Disabilities Act. I have two very prominent links at the top of every single page on my website, to essays about my mental illness. Amazon's HR was all over me like a cheap suit until I asked them to have a look at my site. Within the hour I received an email that informed me I would not be getting an interview. I myself am reluctant to file an ADA complaint, what I would rather do is to address the problem by writing more essays. However, were my writing to have any effect, that would only happen very slowly. I might file that complaint, as it would help other mentally ill people get work. The reason I work as a coder, and not a physicist, is for the specific reason that computer programming "accomodates" my mental illness in a way that academia does not. That is, I can be floridly paranoid, even hallucinating - and I do hallucinate from time to time - yet I can still write really good software.
- dalke 12y ago
  You are making things up and don't understand how the legal system works. The immediate response from Facebook will be that you have no grounds for your lawsuit: you have no evidence of age or disability discrimination, only conjecture, they decline to hire many applicants, and there are legitimate reasons for not going forward with hiring you. Such as they found a better candidate. Even under Reid v. Google, a stray remark like this only helps if it's part of a larger picture. It cannot be used on its own, because Zuckerberg wasn't part of your hiring process. The comment was made years ago, and under EEOC you have less than a year before you can file for discrimination. (The Supreme Court of California decision in Reid points out that Brewer v. Quaker State Oil Refining Corp used statements that were two years old, but that's the most extreme example. Six years is unreasonable.) And in a deposition you cannot ask for "all of your email". Otherwise people would abuse the system and sue a company under any pretext in order to get all email, to spy on the internal operations of the company.
  - MichaelCrawford 12y ago
    Actually I think it's _you_ who don't understand how the legal system works. When one is the respondent in a civil lawsuit, one has to depose under oath, and one must supply what is requested in discovery. Yes, the respondent can ask that a judge quash a discovery subpeona, with the usual argument being that it's "just a fishing expedition". However, given Zuckerberg's adamant insistence that young people are smarter, and that no one at all should hire anyone over the age of thirty, it would not be hard to convince a judge to force Facebook to hand over all of its emails.
    - dalke 12y ago
      Has Zuckerberg said anything about the matter in the last 5 years? If not, then you have no standing, and you have no legal power to compel FB to do anything for you. Legal precedent is against you, and I quoted a California Supreme Court case which went into the details for both California and US anti-discrimination law. Anti-discrimination laws give you 180 calendar days from the day the discrimination took place (or more depending on state or local laws, but not more than a year). You cannot sue over one even that happened that long ago. If so, then show me an example of how Zuckerberg continues to insist on that belief. I have found nothing beyond 2007. And kindly point out in the EEOC guidelines where there's a violation of the law.