Worksheet 21.3: Defenses to Employment Discrimination & Affirmative Action

BFOQ:

A defense to illegal discrimination that the discrimination should be allowed so that the business may operate normally and within the bounds of societal expectations. Race is not allowed in this defense.

Affirmative action:

A program that uses past discrimination to justify present decisions by giving some sort of consideration to protected status

Seniority system:

A defense that apparent discrimination is a result of past hiring practices and will eventually correct itself.

Business necessity:

A defense to charges of illegal discrimination that the discrimination was required for legitimate, job-related reasons.

A legitimate requirement of a job that discriminates against a protected class of people would be considered a(n)

business necessity

Discrimination that is not based on ability to perform the functions of the job, but that is societally necessary (meaning the class of people being denied employment could perform the functions of the job but for some reason, society requires that they not be hired) is justified by:

a BFOQ

An employer may want to promote from within based on performance and time in position. For those employers who used to discriminate, this ______________ system would be a valid defense to charges of discrimination so long as discrimination is not still occurring at the entry level.

seniority

Sometimes employers discover evidence of employee __________________ after someone has sued them for discrimination. Employers may try to use this evidence to completely ___________ liability for the wrongful discrimination. While they cannot eliminate liability with this information, they may be able to __________________ the amount of damages they might have to pay.

misconduct; avoid; limit

Title VII originally required all employers to implement affirmative action programs if they had a record of discrimination. T/F

False

Affirmative action programs __________________ than Title VII by attempting to________________ past discrimination.

go further; make up for

Affirmative action programs:

are controversial, because they are seen as reverse discrimination.

One of the possible legal challenges to affirmative action programs is that they violate the ___________________ clause of the ___________________ Amendment. Because this amendment is at play, any affirmative action program that uses race or ethnicity as a basis for decision making is reviewed by the courts using _______________________ scrutiny.

equal protection; Fourteenth; strict

Because discrimination law is primarily federal, states are not allowed to pass laws that ban affirmative action or protect classes other than those in the federal laws. T/F

False