Xest wrote:
I don't think we can realistically look at discrimination properly until it is something that is in some ways accepted, and in other ways outright shot down - no one should be discriminated against in the colour of their skin, but if they are indeed physically different then isn't it more a case of who's the better applicant for the job rather than a case of discrimination?
Discrimination is where you base your decision on who to hire based on traits of the person which have no effect (or virtually no effect) on how well they can perform the job. This is even worse when those traits are beyond the person's control.
'Discriminating' based on height would be perfectly reasonable for the air force if it did actually make a huge difference in performance. I have read that smaller people (and thus on average women) can handle high-G better because of the smaller difference between brain and heart.
If centrifuge test results result in a higher proportion of women passing than the proportion of women who applied, that wouldn't be discrimination. (OTOH, for something like the police and the army, it can be a good idea to try to match them to the proportion of the general population, even if this means sometimes picking a person who's other skills are not quite the best at the interview)
Also, even basing hiring decisions on skin colour is OK is some cases. Imagine a world where you have a film about South Africa where Nelson Mandela is played by a white actor because he was the most skilled actor who applied, and the studio was afraid of a discrimination lawsuit.
I've seen cases where a female have cried sexism when they haven't been given a promotion over a man (female in question then took 6months off with "stress" and she wonders why she didn't get the job? Even ignoring this she was absolutely not the best applicant), this has led to a full on tribunal wasting hundreds of hours of peoples time and thousands and thousands of pounds, as it was a local goverment employee this is all tax payers money going to waste - surely we should have something in place to prevent such appalling abuses of the term discrimination?
Allow a jury to give 3 verdicts in a discrimination case
- discrimination probably occured
- discrimination probably didn't occur
- a false discrimination was made, beyond reasonable doubt
If the 3rd verdict is given, the plantiff has to cover all court fees and/or can be sued. Another alternative is to allow the company to counter sue for liable or something like that.
One issue is that it might make people who are being discriminated against fear coming forward for fear of being hit with massive court costs.
This case isn't isolated either, we've had a case at our work where a wheel chair user took us to court over not getting a job claiming discrimination, the job was 2nd line tech. support where you'd need to drive around and carry heavy IT equipment up stairs and such, climb up to high mounted switch cabinets and so forth - someone that frankly could never do the job. Whilst I have sympathy for their disability I really struggle to have any sympathy for someone who applies for a job they're physically incapable of then tries to abuse the system to make some money out of it. Luckily said person's case was kicked out of court as they had in fact tried this on with many companies - applying knowing they were unsuitable then suing over it.
Right, companies should be allowed to look at abilities that have a bearing on the job and if you haven't got them, you haven't got them and that isn't the company's fault.
There is a grey area when dealing with adding additional facilities to allow access for disabled. For example, if the job is sitting at a desk all day, then there is little reason someone in a wheelchair can't do it. However, the cost of putting in wheel chair access could be a high proportion of the amount the company would pay any 1 wheel chair bound person.
Unfair discrimination is something we need to stamp out, for example if the wheel chair user above was applying for a job they could physically do and did get turned down because they were in a wheel chair, this is unacceptable, likewise we can't have the Church discriminating against homosexuals for no valid reason other than their "belief", if I believe I should be allowed to kill Christians without penalty does that mean I really should be able to?
Are you refering to the Catholic Church's involvement with the adoption system ? I would say the solution is that a person must promise that they will not allow their person religous viewpoint to cloud their judgement before being allowed to handle adoption screening.
On the other hand however I do really feel that there is such thing as fair discrimination, I think we have to accept that everyone has faults, no matter who they are, and if those faults make them a worse candidate for a job or so forth then so be it, just move on and apply something you're more suited to than any other candidate.
There is no such thing as fair discrimination. If it is fair, then it isn't discrimination.
?) you could likely take a black guy and the white guy would have no case. Taking this further, is it also discrimination for the RAF to refuse people who are too tall because they wont fit in the cockpits properly? Is this not exactly the same thing? discrimination based on genetic traits much as the above? Of course, not all white men have small nobs like Heta and not all black men will have smaller brains because the data is based on averages, but for the sake of discussion I'm just basing it on the idea we're using Mr Average.