Discerning Discrimination in Employment

Discrimination in employment is a big enough issue that it has provoked further

animosity between different groups and even sparked legal action and introduced
the concept of an Equal Opportunity Employer. Indeed, it can be extremely hurtfu
l and offensive to be turned away from a job that you can perform just as well a
s the most qualified applicant solely based on an identifying characteristic tha
t might not even have anything to do with the position. Most would agree that th
is is an unfair practice that should be put to an end.
As heinous as discrimination in employment is, it can also be quite difficult to
prove. Even if employers are prejudiced, theyre unlikely to publicly claim their
bias. While prejudice is still widespread in our society, its ironically sociall
y unacceptable to openly prefer certain groups over others. Prejudice is more of
an internal phenomenon that can go undetected. If an employer doesnt outright te
ll you or explicitly show that you werent hired because of say, your sex or race,
how are you supposed to demonstrate that discrimination has taken place? If you
never met the employer face to face, you might never even know.
It might be a little bit easier to build a case for discrimination in the workpl
ace, but again the evidence isnt always so tangible. People who feel they are the
target of workplace discrimination may also struggle internally over whether th
ey are really being discriminated against or if theyre just imagining it. If vict
ims never speak out about it in the first place, nothing can be done. If victims
do decide to take action, they can keep track of instances in which there was d
iscrimination in employment so that they can establish a pattern, but even this
can turn into a matter of I said, they said. Unfortunately, court cases arent about
what really happened; theyre about what evidence is presented in court. Its not e
nough just to describe how you feel or even whats happeningyou have to be able to
show it, and instances of discrimination often dont leave behind explicit indicat
ors that they occurred.
Discrimination in employment usually conjures the idea of racism or sexism, but
its possible for discrimination to work positively, hiring people because of cert
ain characteristics instead of not hiring because of them. Should this be consid
ered unfair the way that negative discrimination is? It might be hard to prove c
onventional discrimination in employment, but dealing with the nature of discrim
ination itself might be even more complicated.