Employment Discrimination Law

Posted: February 21st, 2020

Employment Discrimination Law

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Employment Discrimination Law

Over the years, the workplace has become a fair illustration of the existence of diversity among individuals. Aside from gender concerns, other dimensions have become viable especially in establishing an environment that treats each person fairly irrespective of the disparities they possess. In the United States, entities such as the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) are tasked with the role of ensuring that men and women undergo fair and equitable treatment via the eradication of any form of discriminative processes that may arise. Even though race and gender constitute the primary aspects of the EEOC’s strive for a non-discriminatory workplace, other aspects such as sexual orientation, culture, age, and disability have become part of the organization’s commitment towards a just working environment for Americans. In this respect, the purpose of this essay comprises the elucidation of all restricted employment practices specifically in job interviews.

The United States has been at the forefront of combating employment discrimination particularly in the 1960s. At the time, different civil rights movements were established in order to call for the fair treatment of minority groups such as African Americans as well as women. By 1964, the government instituted the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which generally outlawed discrimination of people based on dimensions such as race, ethnicity, gender, or age. One of the main statutes responsible for restricting job discrimination comprises Title VII (EEOCb, 2015). The respective law focused on the restriction of employment discrimination in accordance with certain attributes such as color, race, sex, religion, or national origin. Other statutes similar to Title VII involve the 1963 Equal Pay Act and the 1967 Age Discrimination in Employment Act which protect citizens from wage and age discrimination respectively. Furthermore, the Americans with Disabilities Act, specifically Titles I and V, restrict employment discrimination on the basis of impairments (EEOCa, 2015).

Based on the influence of employment discrimination laws, job interviews are required to possess both permissible and impermissible inquiries. Permissible inquiries generally involve questions that are viable especially within the pre-employment stage. Foremost, the applicant’s name or the name of the institution that he or she worked for is a permissible inquiry. Other permissible inquiries involve family and marital status for insurance and tax purposes, the minimum age as set by law, the person’s ability to perform a task without accommodation, race and sex for affirmative action plan numbers, convictions, residence, and citizenship (Cheeseman, 2013). On the other hand, impermissible inquiries are those that should be averted during job interviews. For instance, inquiries that ask for a woman’s maiden name, or those that may signal the applicant’s genealogy, nationality, descent, or ancestry are impermissible. Additionally, request for information regarding marital status, age, or date birth prior to hiring are impermissible inquiries.

In order to avoid the ramifications of employment discrimination especially in procedures such as job interviews, business managers need to apply certain strategies. Foremost, business managers need to carry out a full-fledged job analysis on the vacant position. Additionally, the manager will need to list the form of skill or expertise required for each obligation. Business managers will also have to detail the quantity of experience and education needed to carry out respective job duties satisfactorily. Aside from this, business managers will have to avert from listing requirements that comprise physical characteristics (Cheeseman, 2013). For a more equitable interview process, managers may base their respective questions on the job assessment that they have prepared. In order to avoid any hint of discrimination, it will be imperative to ask the same questions to each candidate on the list.

To this end, it is imperative for employers to consider and apply the guidelines required by the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. Even though the guidelines are aimed at protecting the prospective applicant, such policies are also based on securing the employer from the considerable repercussions that may occur even at the slightest hint of discrimination. For a nation as diverse as the United States, the strive to ensure a balanced, fair, and equitable workplace raises challenges that employers need to counter in order to remain consistent within the ever-changing consumer market.

References

Cheeseman, H. R. (2013). Equal opportunity in employment. In H. R. Cheeseman (Ed.), The legal environment of business and online commerce: Business ethics, e-commerce, regulatory, and international issues (pp. 400-421). Upper Saddle River, N.J: Pearson/Prentice Hall.

United States Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. (2015). Federal laws prohibiting job discrimination. Retrieved from http://www.eeoc.gov/facts/qanda.html

United States Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. (2015). Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. Retrieved from http://www.eeoc.gov/laws/statutes/titlevii.cfm