[Politicos]

If you hire only veterans, disadvantaged (e.g. poor inner-city residents, < hs diploma), disabled, under-represented minorities, etc., and you intentionally and explicitly won't hire those who are more qualified, non-veteran / non-disabled individuals, then does the US law see this as a form of discrimination? Will a company be found liable in civil court for discriminating, or is this "anti-discrimination"?

[quetzalcoatl]

The basis of your argument is overstated. Human resources will always be looking at a constellation of factors when considering whether to employ you. Race may be one of these factors, along with gender, veteran status, etc. Being a member of a privileged social and economic class is still an important favorable consideration in many elite professions, so it works both ways.

The truth is that, without such preferences, disabled persons would be at an enormous disadvantage in the employment marketplace. The relatively minor inconvenience to you is hardly worth bothering with. Those that feel they have been negatively affected by such preferences should reflect that they are only represent a small part of their overall employability profile - that is, only those who were already marginally employable would be affected.

[Politicos]

The basis of your argument is overstated. Human resources will always be looking at a constellation of factors when considering whether to employ you. Race may be one of these factors, along with gender, veteran status, etc. Being a member of a privileged social and economic class is still an important favorable consideration in many elite professions, so it works both ways.

The truth is that, without such preferences, disabled persons would be at an enormous disadvantage in the employment marketplace. The relatively minor inconvenience to you is hardly worth bothering with. Those that feel they have been negatively affected by such preferences should reflect that they are only represent a small part of their overall employability profile - that is, only those who were already marginally employable would be affected.

You seem to be assuming a position that I'm not taking. To be fair, I should have made it clearer in the original post instead of leaving it open-ended as to where I'm coming from.

Sure, there are costs and benefits to whomever you hire, but the question remains...

If I set my company's directive to hire only veterans, disabled, minorities, disadvantaged, etc., will my company and I be sued and likely found liable? I would assume that I'd be much better protected as an individual if my company were an LLC as opposed to, say, a sole-proprietorship.

[mikema63]

Well essentially that's a legal thing. The question society must ask itself in making discrimination laws is when and where it is acceptable to discriminate.

Certainly we should be allowed to discriminate in favor of people with more ability at the very least.

[Politicos]

Well essentially that's a legal thing. The question society must ask itself in making discrimination laws is when and where it is acceptable to discriminate.

Certainly we should be allowed to discriminate in favor of people with more ability at the very least.

I can see the argument for discriminating in favor of people with more ability, but that isn't to say that those who are veterans, disabled, etc. aren't just as good or better at a given position. Nevertheless, the argument can be made, which was why I posed the question.

In the US today, is it federally prohibited to hire only veterans, disabled, disadvantaged, etc. in lieu of otherwise "unclassified" or unprotected individuals? Or, put another way, is there a court case ruling on the exact matter? This is technically discrimination, but in a way it's also anti-discrimination.

[SolarCross]

Discrimination is unavoidable whoever you hire you are not hiring someone else. Joke laws that try to threaten employers from making their own choices may tilt the table in favour of some people but that is just another form of discrimination. True anti-discrimination would be a job lottery but even that discriminates against those well fitted for the role who would otherwise have a good chance of selection instead of a poor one.

[Ganeshas Rat]

Society must do everything to simplify life of any citizen - including disabled. Not everyone, though. The variety of traumas is infinite, so we must defend as much people as we can with our limited resources. Blinds and deafs first, then maimed. Somebody will be discriminated because of those limits, somebody will be even doomed like all these guys having rare genetic diseases with 1 per 10,000,000 density. And after someone sentenced people to the death, what's the matter of talking about their job discrimination?

Society must be just to people. But society shouldn't be helpful and philanthropic. It's about veterans too. It's not possible to leave them alone after they spilled their blood and risked their lives for their country. It will be very good to pay them pensions, give awards, give an easy access to the governmental services. But what's the problem with jobs? Veterans are usually sane middle-aged men (especially in the normal countries), who are able to compete with other applicants. The maximum a state can do here is giving the opportunities of (re)education for veterans.

And now there are minorities. While I can understand why you cannot discriminate your clients basing on your preferences of people (wild true capitalism is as evil as true socialism), it has absolutely no sense why they discriminate me choosing who's help I will take. I put my money in to create a team. What I will do if somebody will come to find the job, somebody smelling, emiting the stench everytime he opens his mouth? Will he create the new minority of guys with smelling from a mouth to whom I cannot refuse? And what if he would be an old black lesbian? It will be better to take her immediately and suffer than pay millions, right? I am agree, people who are able to refuse gays of job because of their opinion about gays are just assholes. But why gays so deeply want to work with those assholes?

This positive discrimination is total bullshit. So I fully support America here. You do it absolutely right, guys, create new corporations, refuse to everyone except veterans, disabled, gays, retards, fishers, who else. Positive discrimination, obamacare, more socialism, more socialism. Establish the communist regime there, just imagine how proud your country will be, the shining edge of the proletariat, the beatiful weapon of the civilization. Heaven on Earth in 40 years! Pluto cities! The eighty meters gold statues of the Founding Fathers in Mariana trench! The full subduing of entropy!

[Politicos]

So, hypothetically speaking, will I win a lawsuit against an unprotected, able-bodied individual (e.g. white male, no disabilities, non-veteran), who claims I discriminated by hiring a veteran instead? I believe the veteran to be just as capable as the plaintiff in performing the duties as written in the job description.

The judge may or may not see this as frivolous, though I do believe that, at least from the court of public opinion, the lawsuit would be thrown out. That's just a hunch - normative claims aside and yes/no in terms of likelihood, a more concrete answer by an expert on here would be appreciated.

[jango1985]

I don't have a legal background to talk from but your question is so open ended and vague it could go any which way. Hooters won court cases when they got sued for only hiring attractive females but because it was part of the job qualification to be an attractive female they won it. If you run a veterans repair cars repair shop I think that creates a quasi qualification of being a veteran to work there. I mean if you go get your car fixed there and find out no vets actually work there and you don't actually help vets any they might be kind of ticked off and feel cheated. If you want to run a huge corporation that supplies half the jobs in a town and then decide sorry your not crippled we won't hire you and it has nothing to do with the job qualifications that would make a non arbitrary situation of discrimination for people. Also you have to think in terms of practicality if you slightly annoy a few able bodied individuals nobodies gonna care, not even them, enough to sue you for it. There is almost never going to be case law set where someone went to court complaining they hate me because I am too beautiful. Now if your a minority, victim, or under privileged it becomes more of an issue hence all the case law. In theory it is possible to discriminate towards the able body'ed in practice its going to be so rare as to almost never become an issue legal or otherwise.

[Lightman]

If you hire only veterans, disadvantaged (e.g. poor inner-city residents, < hs diploma), disabled, under-represented minorities, etc., and you intentionally and explicitly won't hire those who are more qualified, non-veteran / non-disabled individuals, then does the US law see this as a form of discrimination? Will a company be found liable in civil court for discriminating, or is this "anti-discrimination"?

The way employment law in the United States works is that you cannot discriminate against people who belong to a protected class. The Federal protected classes (copied from wikipedia) are:

Race – Civil Rights Act of 1964
Color – Civil Rights Act of 1964
Religion – Civil Rights Act of 1964
National origin – Civil Rights Act of 1964
Age (40 and over) – Age Discrimination in Employment Act of 1967
Sex – Equal Pay Act of 1963 and Civil Rights Act of 1964
Pregnancy – Pregnancy Discrimination Act
Citizenship – Immigration Reform and Control Act
Familial status – Civil Rights Act of 1968 Title VIII: Housing cannot discriminate for having children, with an exception for senior housing
Disability status – Rehabilitation Act of 1973 and Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990
Veteran status – Vietnam Era Veterans' Readjustment Assistance Act of 1974 and Uniformed Services Employment and Reemployment Rights Act
Genetic information – Genetic Information Nondiscrimination Act

So, to answer your question. You could not hire only non-whites, since race is a protected class in general. I'm guessing you could hire all disabled or all veterans, in that I suspect that class-protection there only extends to people who are veterans/disabled, though I'm not totally positive about that. You can absolutely discriminate against people based on education, as education status is not a protected class.

[Drlee]

I understand that you are posing a hypothetical question but as a practical matter what you envision is highly unlikely. I have the suspicion that you are sneaking up on the reverse discrimination argument. I would not bother if I were you.

Lightman has it just right. But in a more practical sense, consider this:

Suppose I have a company that employs 20 people. Andy fewer than this and the question becomes one of simple bosses preference. There is a chance that if I as the owner published the fact that I was contriving to hire only people in protected classes, one could assert that I was discriminating. But it would not be unlawful unless someone of the protected classes sued. I could easily prove during the investigation/discovery that I was specifically seeking people in protected classifications and would therefor be on absolutely innocent. And I would have the law behind me.

There is absolutely no legal requirement for an employer to hire "the most qualified" and there never will be. Bosses can hire people because they like blondes, appreciate one-legged people who smell good or just like "the cut of her jib". The only time they can be held accountable is when it can be proved that they deliberately discriminated against a protected person. But here is how complicated it is.

Suppose I hired a white male veteran as opposed to a black female nonveteran who was more qualified. Could the black female prevail in court based upon qualifications? Unlikely. All I would have to do is claim that I, as an employer, value the leadership and work ethic training that most veterans have. Those are both prized qualifications. That alone might defeat her argument that she was "more qualified". Again. The black female would have to prove that I did not chose her because she was black or female. That would be a very tough thing to prove. Racial discrimination laws would protect a white person from being excluded.

Now suppose that some of my veterans were disabled white males. They would tick a few boxes. They would count as a white person in addition to being veterans.

So about the only way I can see that an employer could get in trouble is if he/she specifically prohibited hiring any of the protected categories and did it openly. And one of those categories would, since you ask, include white males.

I think you are articulating a problem that, as a practical matter, could not exist.