Employment Discrimination

Employment discrimination occurs when an employer treats a potential employee or a current employee negatively based on certain characteristics, such as race, gender, pregnancy status, religion, nationality, disability status, age, or financial status, among others. A set of federal and state laws that prohibit employers from discriminating during recruitment, hiring, training, performance evaluations, promotions, termination, compensation, and penal action are currently in place. Among these is the Civil Rights Act of 1964. Some employers also adopt equal opportunity or affirmative action plans that help them to hire a workforce that is representative of the ethnic groups in the region or the country.

Legal Issues

A variety of acts, statutes, provisions comprise the current body of workplace discrimination laws. Although not directly outlined in the American Constitution, two amendments address discrimination by the federal and state governments. The Fifth Amendment states that the federal government may not deny citizens “life, liberty, or property” without just cause. The Fourteenth Amendment grants all individuals the rights to due process and equal protection, which in a workplace context would suggest that potential, current, and former employees should be granted the same rights and protections regardless of their skin color, sexual orientation, disability status, etc. Some of the federal laws that have emerged to thus protect individuals include the Equal Pay Act of 1963, the Fair Labor Standards Act of 1963, and the Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990.

Affected Groups

It is a well-known fact that certain minority groups may be at a disadvantage in the workplace. The pay gap is one of the most visible examples of this. Even with anti-discrimination and equal pay laws in place, women and minorities are still less likely to receive the same pay for doing the same job as a white or Asian-American male. Currently, African Americans, Native Americans, and Hispanics are less likely to make as much as whites and Asian-Americans. While there may be many explanations for this – including access to education, discrimination, and work ethics – the reality is that in spite of the laws prohibiting pay discrimination, they still exist. In 2009, Hispanic American employees made approximately 61% of their white counterparts. The disparities also exist between the genders, with women and especially women of color less likely to make as much as male workers.

Challenges

Many people have challenged the idea that employment discrimination still exists in the workplace. Some Americans have shown outrage at the continuation of affirmative action and equal opportunity campaigns, which are seen as ways of reserving jobs for seemingly lesser-qualified minorities. However, the goal of these hiring practices is never to hire persons who are unqualified for the job at hand, but to ensure that ethnic and minority groups are adequately represented in the workforce. Other critics of employment discrimination point to the supposed disparities in income between genders and racial groups. They suggest that comparative statistics have not been adjusted to account for other job characteristics that may result in higher or lower pay, such as seniority or commissions.