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You are talking of an old verification system which is already out-dated. What employers now need to do is to include E-Verify process at the same the employer is filing the form I-9. The system has been in place for many years already.

All men are however at risk of a false accusation.

The important question is how great a risk is it?

You could be hit by lightning. There might be a sniper randomly picking people off today. Your house might be built over a sinkhole. These are all things that happen from time to time but you don't worry about them much because they are rare.

On the other hand people do worry about things like terrorism, even though the probability of being caught up in a terror attack is tiny. Much lower than being killed crossing the road. And it's mostly due to terror attacks getting so much publicity, but road accidents rarely making the news.

Stanford says that false rape claims run to about 2%, similar to other types of crime. According to the Equal Opportunity Commission the number of sexual harassment claims has actually /fallen/ since the 90s., and the number of complaints last year puts the chance of being accused at 1 in 14,000. Of course it's actually much lower because many of those complaints are against the same person for multiple incidents.

And of course that's all complaints, not just the false ones.

For comparison the chances of being in a motor vehicle accident are about 1 in 8,000. You are several times more likely to be poisoned by something you eat than falsely accused in the absolute worst case.

All men are however at risk of a false accusation.

The important question is how great a risk is it?

You could be hit by lightning. There might be a sniper randomly picking people off today. Your house might be built over a sinkhole. These are all things that happen from time to time but you don't worry about them much because they are rare.

On the other hand people do worry about things like terrorism, even though the probability of being caught up in a terror attack is tiny. Much lower than being killed crossing the road. And it's mostly due to terror attacks getting so much publicity, but road accidents rarely making the news.

Stanford says that false rape claims run to about 2%, similar to other types of crime. According to the Equal Opportunity Commission the number of sexual harassment claims has actually /fallen/ since the 90s., and the number of complaints last year puts the chance of being accused at 1 in 14,000. Of course it's actually much lower because many of those complaints are against the same person for multiple incidents.

And of course that's all complaints, not just the false ones.

For comparison the chances of being in a motor vehicle accident are about 1 in 8,000. You are several times more likely to be poisoned by something you eat than falsely accused in the absolute worst case.

How is it right for an unelected minority to decide who everybody else must live with?

These laws were not put in place by an unelected minority. The Civil Rights Act of 1964 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Civil_Rights_Act_of_1964 was a bill that passed Congress and was signed into law by the then-President of the United States Lyndon B. Johnson. The Civil Rights Act made it illegal within the United States to discriminate on the basis of race, color, religion, sex, or national origin. According to Wikipedia, it It prohibits unequal application of voter registration requirements, racial segregation in schools, employment, and public accommodations. Additional laws including (but not limited to) the Pregnancy Discrimination Act, the Equal Pay Act of 1963, the Age Discrimination in Employment Act of 1967 followed... check out https://www.eeoc.gov/laws/statutes/index.cfm to see all of the laws enforced by the US Equal Employment Opportunity Commission.

Duly elected representatives of the people of the United States have determined that these kinds of discrimination will not be tolerated.

Who can disagree with "know thyself"? Perfectly sensible.

The issue comes when people look at that lady engineer and conclude that the reason she was a bad engineer is because she was a lady.

She was a bad engineer because she believed the hype, that you can be anything you want to be if you only try hard enough. And as a female, she was pushed through the system because "Women in STEM". But she didn't have the correct mindset to be an effective engineer. That her mindset is one that is attributed to female stereotypes suggests that she could have had a happier early life by following that mindset instead of being pushed along to fit someone elses agenda.

Next case, a lady engineer I worked with. She knew from a young age that she was going to be an engineer. Now she very well could have oriented herself in a more traditional non engineering pop culture path for a woman. She is remarkably beautiful and has all of the physical characteristics to be a fashion model. But she wanted to be an engineer. She's a very competent one too. She would be miserable in any other career.

The point of all this is that using politics to force men out and force fit women into positions, aside from being illegal and sexist - it simply does not work.

The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission makes this quite clear https://www.eeoc.gov/laws/type...

The relevent part from the cite: The law forbids discrimination when it comes to any aspect of employment, including hiring, firing, pay, job assignments, promotions, layoff, training, fringe benefits, and any other term or condition of employment.

A requirement that certain positions are open to only women and that men are not eligible, and might lose that position if they already have it, are obviously in violation of that law by being inherently sexist in nature.This distinctly violates the hiring and firing aspects. It takes some impressive cognitive dissonance to hold that blatant sexual discrimination is not sexual discrimination.

Do you have evidence to back this up?

Checking Microsoft's own stats they claim that 56% of their workers are caucasion, which is what I presume you mean when you say "white": https://www.microsoft.com/en-u...

The EEO-1 report is here: https://query.prod.cms.rt.micr...

Of course that is for the whole company, but it would be quite incredible if somehow at their main HQ "white workers have been all but eliminated" and yet all other locations put the overall figure at 56%.

Unfortunately it's hard to say how many of their employees are Indian because the EEO-1 form lumps them in with a lot of other nationalities and ethnicities: "A person having origins in any of the original peoples of the Far East, Southeast Asia, or the Indian Subcontinent, including, for example, Cambodia, China, India, Japan, Korea, Malaysia, Pakistan, the Philippine Islands, Thailand, and Vietnam." But it's certainly less than 31% which is the total for all of those, and of course that number includes all Americans who are "Asian" but not foreign nationals.

Age discrimination in the US is pretty much legal (at a Federal level at least) until you hit the magic age of 40. Some states may have different laws.

https://www.eeoc.gov/laws/type...

The letter you quoted has nothing to do with an employer running a diversity program...

True. It said that those offering paid internships were subject to Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which coincidentally forbid discrimination on the basis of race and sex.

On the other hand, the report that you linked to has nothing do to with permitted practices in running a diversity program, and does nothing to refute the statement that "Absolute bars on consideration for such positions based on race and sex are forbidden." You'll notice that the EEOC expressly states that "It is illegal for a training or apprenticeship program to discriminate on the bases of race, color, religion, sex (including gender identity, sexual orientation, and pregnancy), national origin, age (40 or older), disability or genetic information. For example, an employer may not deny training opportunities to African-American employees because of their race."

I don't see "unless you're running a diversity program." Do you?

File a charge against them here: https://www.eeoc.gov/employees...

You're pointing to a specific outreach program, not to LLVM's entire intern program.

The link points to an ad that is blatantly ILLEGAL under American law.

Prohibited Practices: It is illegal for an employer to publish a job advertisement that shows a preference for or discourages someone from applying for a job because of his or her race, color, religion, sex (including gender identity, sexual orientation, and pregnancy), national origin, age (40 or older), disability or genetic information.

The letter you quoted has nothing to do with an employer running a diversity program. If you want to hear the same voice, EEOC's counsel, on that matter, it's here.

I don't know much about Outreachy. But a program that encourages participation by women and minorities requiring that funding candidates actually be women or minorities doesn't seem at all out of place for the purpose of the organization.

The EEOC appears to disagree with you when it comes to paid internships, Bruce. Absolute bars on consideration for such positions based on race and sex are forbidden.

It's not illegal to ask candidates about children or marital status. That's a lie.

Wrong.

As usual, DogDude displaying his arrogance, ignorance, and ineptitude as a business owner.

Unless they are white males under the age of 44. They are not protected by federal laws that define hostile work enviornments.....if fact it is our duty to brave the harassment of others with a thick skin.

This is incorrect. Race is a protected class and discriminating against someone in the workplace because of their race, including members of a racial majority, is illegal under US Federal Law

Quoting from that link

Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 (Title VII)

This law makes it illegal to discriminate against someone on the basis of race, color, religion, national origin, or sex.

White men under the age of 44 may NOT legally be discriminated against in the workplace for being white, young, or old.

No kidding. There were 91,503 discrimination lawsuits filed in the US last year, but the fact that Tesla has 2 against it is news. I can't even...

It's really pretty simple. ... If the answer to 1 and 2 is "yes" then you're doing something illegal and need to sort your shit out.

It's wasn't that simple even when the EPA was passed. Please see the list in Section 3(d)(1).

A hint to the mods: -1 is not for "I don't like the law you've just correctly explained to me".

You're over-simplifying a complex area of the legal system and a half-century of case law down to a single "if" statement. You also seem to think that the legal system blindly believes that correlation is causation. Either one of those would justify the down-modding.

You realize, of course, that those aren't related in any way. There are many reasons you can't discriminate against someone, but many more reasons why you can. I can refuse to serve you because I don't like the shirt you're wearing or your cologne or your haircut (as long as those aren't proxies for your race, sex, or national origin).

But more importantly, there's an enormous legal gap between who you are and what you've done. It's not OK to kick you out of my restaurant because you're white. It's way OK to kick you out because you crapped on the floor and peed on another diner's cheeseburger.

The closest real-world analogy to your straw man is that you can't refuse to bake cakes for a Methodist. That's explicitly illegal. You can surely refuse to bake cakes for the specific Methodist who knocked up your sister. Now do you understand how this all works in reality-land?

Was there anything in that quote that you've got a problem with?

I noted this in particular:

"I realize that some of our programs may be precautions against government
accusations of discrimination, but that can easily backfire since they incentivize
illegal discrimination."

And that's the rub - racial discrimination is illegal. https://www.eeoc.gov/laws/type...

And if #Goolag is telling people to reject candidates based on race until they get to certain "diversity" targets, then they have crossed over the line. And Damore's whistleblowing is why we know.

"On average, men and women biologically differ in many ways. These differences aren’t just socially constructed because:

  They’re universal across human cultures
  They often have clear biological causes and links to prenatal testosterone
  Biological males that were castrated at birth and raised as females often still identify and act like males
  The underlying traits are highly heritable
  They’re exactly what we would predict from an evolutionary psychology perspective

Note, I’m not saying that all men differ from all women in the following ways or that these differences are “just.” I’m simply stating that the distribution of preferences and abilities of men and women differ in part due to biological causes and that these differences may explain why we don’t see equal representation of women in tech and leadership. Many of these differences are small and there’s significant overlap between men and women, so you can’t say anything about an individual given these population level distributions."

Companies shouldn't even keep track of race or gender of their employees, there is no legitimate reason to keep that information, and it is only ever useful for discriminatory practices.

FWIW, in the USA, most large companies are *required* by the government to collect information about the race and gender of their employee by the EEOC.

Of course they aren't required to *keep* or *use* the information, but when would a post-modern company in the social media age not keep data that it is actually required to collect? If a company takes advantage of their customers that way, why would they treat their employees with more respect?

We all know this — the "free speech" Amendment only applies to government. You must not prosecuted for calling Trump "traitor" or a policemen — "an asshole".

Though the work to abolish the Amendment is in progress, it may take a while for us to become "more like Europe".

So, in order to control, what people say — and what politics they support — the statists have invented a new trick. Instead of pursuing the individuals, they would go after employers. See, the First Amendment may protect James Damore's speech, but it does not protect Google from charges of "creating hostile work-environment".

And just what constitutes such an environment? Whatever the government says it does (somehow "gender identity" is on the list already, for example)... Sure, sure, to actually win in court, the prosecutors/lawyers need to persuade a judge and the jury. But the process is daunting and very costly — and whereas the employer has to pay their own expenses, the "attackers" are paid by the taxpayers.

It is to protect themselves from such nonsense, that employers establish these "internal policies" and set up positions like "Vice President of Diversity" in the first place. These people sincerely believe in the justice of their causes, doing the government's job for it...

By inventing "protected categories" the government gets to decide, what Americans aren't allowed to say. At least, at work — where we spend about half of our waking time. And then come Social Justice Warriors, who would gleefully pursue you even for convictions privately held...

First Amendment? Yes, sure — you still have it, but best talk in your shower, where no one can hear it and get offended.

the list of reasons why an at-will employer cannot fire an employee who decides, unprompted, to openly criticize the employer's policies and

The NRLA specifically protects openly criticizing employer's policies.

And the Civil Rights Act of 1964 prohibits supervisors from engaging in harassment based upon gender. When someone is a "Senior Software Engineer," serves as a peer reviewer, and is fired for "perpetuating gender stereotypes," which priority governs?

BTW, the NLRA does not apply to supervisors.

If the company has more than 15 or 20 employees, then they fall under EEOC guidelines. As an independent contractor or an individual employee, you are free to blacklist people as you wish.

A manager representing a company with more than 15 or 20 employees however cannot blacklist people for qualities protected by the EEOC (sex, race, religion, age, etc).

"Do you really think Intel would invest £300m into improving diversity just because some 'SJWs' criticised them? "

Something along those lines, absolutely! Intel has been an extremely successful company with its predominately white, predominately male workforce. This "diversity" bullshit is nothing but a collective mental illness which permeates contemporary culture & Intel is trying to capitalize on it. The whole effort is a big public image campaign.

It's not just "some SJWs" criticizing them. Every single time this is discussed in the media, government or academia, the "whiteness" and "maleness" in the tech industry is framed in the context of a problem that needs to be solved.

e.g.
Wired: Intel isn't diverse enough

Gizmodo: The Alarming Downsides to Tech Industry Diversity Reports

It's even framed as a problem from a public policy standpoint!
EEOC: "...the lack of diversity among high tech workers [has] become [a] central public policy [concern]."

You never (except in the comments section) hear the hypothesis that there just might be fundamental differences across the races and the sexes and that the composition of the workforce is a function of those differences. They also conveniently gloss over the fact that these evil white racists in tech seem to hire plenty of minorities of Asian/East Asian heritage.
F*** Intel. If they're going to have a big PR campaign where white men are viewed as a "problem", they won't be getting my $$$.

I don't think it is just STEM. How do you define 'sexual harassment'? I think if you go by the Department of Labor definition.
https://www1.eeoc.gov/eeoc/sta...
It looks like about 1/4 of all 'reported' charges are for sexual harassment across the board, and those of coarse are more egregious then the basic 'attitude and atmosphere' so it seems unlikely that any women working in any field would not have seen at least some sexual harassment. Probably all have experienced sexism even if not direct harassment. Although, I suppose because women are a significant minority in the STEM industry they are more easily targeted.

American society has a terrible problem with respecting women in general, which is primarily due to our attitudes about sex and family.
It has gotten ever worse since the 'free love' generation. Women were empowered to work , but they were also expected to make themselves interchangeable with men on both an emotional and social level. That is a huge disservice to all women and all men.

I haven't put dates to my educational history in 20-+ years. I haven't included employment history further than 7 years for at least that long.

Since employers aren't really permitted to ask your age (AEDA), they shouldn't until it's time for as background check, and if they are big enough they should let HR/Personnel handle that information without revealing it to the hiring individual or team.

Wow. This is an anti-discrimination class-action suit waiting for a sponsor. Forcing dates out of you is forced age disclosure, and illegal.

Illegal. And it's not even new. Not surprising though.

I don't need any government regulations backlash on my hands, so I try to ensure it just doesn't come to that. Hiring somebody older in the West means hiring somebody who is a more protected class (in terms of government laws) and it can be dangerous for me, as it can hurt me financially and this is where I draw the line.

As if discrimination in hiring isn't subject to "government regulations backlash".

I'm tempted to report you myself... it's not often that someone is stupid enough, even pseudononymously, to admit to a clear violation of the law in a manner that they cannot delete on a site that maintains logs...

Yes and no, not completely required

https://www.eeoc.gov/laws/type...

Harassment can include “sexual harassment” or unwelcome sexual advances, requests for sexual favors, and other verbal or physical harassment of a sexual nature.

You've limited the scope to "quid pro quo" sexual harassment. The article demonstrates "hostile environment" sexual harassment. There's no requirement that "compliance is made a condition of continued employment or advancement". https://www.eeoc.gov/laws/type...

is partially anonymize their customers so that it was difficult or impossible to determine an applicant's race from his application

Anonymity will not help — there are very few obviously Black names. They need to disable photos — which were denounced as a major instrument of racism for almost a century already. But that would mean removal of an important feature of the system by making it impersonal...

My personal opinion is that while racism is regrettable, its impact is overrated and far less damaging than any heavy-handed (and freedom-trampling) efforts to fight it. Jews, for example, were targets of racism in Europe for centuries. And I mean real racism — the pogroms were far more tangible, than anything Blacks suffer from in the US today. Similarly to Blacks, Asians were victims of racism in the US since building the railroads (I just watched the Bruce Lee movie).

Yet, neither the Jews nor the Asians today need to explain their under-performance in our "White society" by the racism — because they perform better than the supposed tormentors. So much better, Asian college-applicants are advised to not answer the "Race" question on their applications — to avoid the penalty college boards impose on Asians in the name of "equality". Being presumed White instead of Asian is estimated to be an equivalent to extra 50 SAT-points...

50 years ago we surrendered certain freedoms to the promise of racial harmony. The harmony remains as elusive as ever, but the freedoms continue withering away...

Hey dumbass, there already is a law.

https://www.eeoc.gov/laws/stat...

Morons like you are so gullible, you believe the tripe thrown at you by the media from their agenda handbook.

At least he's blatant about it.

https://www.eeoc.gov/laws/type...

https://www.eeoc.gov/facts/qan...

Not exactly. The bakeries are not discriminating for a job, so the Office of Personnel management interpretation of the discrimination laws does not apply.

Your understanding of this issue is entirely based upon your feelings about the specific incident, and not by equality under the law. You are the one who seems to be being simplistic and childish as you have this whole opinion that laws should have favorites. Either we are all protected equally, or the law provides no protection.

wrong link. that's the one for disabilities.
here's religion: https://www.eeoc.gov/laws/type...

It would very much depend on the type of job. When my wife was 5-6 months pregnant she was looking for a new job. She found one, and got hired on. Less then a month into it, she went on bed rest, had the baby at 9 months, and decided not to go back to work at all and raise the child.

Meanwhile the company was forced to hold her position and were essentially down a person.

From her perspective it made sense, it was our first child. She was planning on having the baby, taking a couple months off and then going back to work. Reality changed that.

From the companies perspective, they should of never hired her. She wasted their time and essentially forced everyone else to work extra to take up the slack.

So yes, from a business perspective, in many cases I would not hire someone who's pregnant, especially if its their first pregnancy. It would be different if it was a skilled type job, and the person in question was the top candidate and had a great resume with a good employment history. In that case the investment and risk would be worth it. But the risk of them never coming back from maternity leave is very real.

Sure--but you'd still be breaking the law.

https://www.eeoc.gov/laws/type...

you're playing a little too loose with what does what.

the 1st Amendment only protects religion from government, not from public discrimination.
it has no bearing on discrimination by any non-governmental entities.
it has no bearing on public accommodations, or the right of a religious baker to refuse to bake a cake for a lesbian wedding.

the civil rights and anti discrimination laws have their basis in the 14th amendment, though their concepts didnt exist explicitly until they were written.
And those laws (collectively "public accommodations" and "anti discrimination" are what protect religious groups in the public square in the same fashion as minorities. The same concept that says businesses have to do business with all of the public, includes religious persons.

Your pork example is a poorly constructed straw man, particularly since it's in fact wrong.
You're actually pretty ignorant in this area:

http://www.eeoc.gov/laws/types...

Religious Discrimination & Reasonable Accommodation

The law requires an employer or other covered entity to reasonably accommodate an employee's religious beliefs or practices, unless doing so would cause more than a minimal burden on the operations of the employer's business. This means an employer may be required to make reasonable adjustments to the work environment that will allow an employee to practice his or her religion.

Examples of some common religious accommodations include flexible scheduling, voluntary shift substitutions or swaps, job reassignments, and modifications to workplace policies or practices.

An employer that provides lunch to its employees, if it has a Muslim employee, should in fact provide a pork-free alternative. That actually is a reasonable accommodation. As is allowing a Muslim women to wear a head scarf on the job, recently affirmed in a lawsuit against A&F: http://www.aljazeera.com/news/... . And so are prayer breaks, generally (the meat packer case, being an assembly line operation dependent on every worker has yet to be resolved, and may be an exception that is deemed not reasonable).

These are not willy-nilly demands, they are in fact well known tenets of the religion and established reasonable accommodations.

You should have chosen better straw men.

I think you misunderstand the definition of "wage gap." The wage gap is that an equally qualified woman performing an equal job to a man in the same position is earning significantly less (I think the current estimate is around 80%.)

Holy shit, if that is the case why am I not hearing about lawsuits flying around about this? Especially since it would be prima facie against the Equal Pay Act. Hell if I was a lawyer I would be salivating at those cases as a slam dunk win, if what you said was true.
Or you could be pulling shit out of your ass since the wage gap you described has been debunked multiple times. There is no evidence I could find of a pay gap as you described it, There is a gap when looking at all men vs all women but this is because of career choice and hours worked. If you are aware of any woman who is being underpaid as you described I would recommend they contact their nearest competent attorney because they are due a hell of a settlement.

The objectives are all laid out in the executive orders which establish affirmative action, and it has nothing to do with forcing employment of various classes, quotas, or anything like that. The key objectives are "equality of opportunity for all qualified persons" and "efficient and effective utilization of all available manpower". Really, go ahead and read them and see if there's anything that you find objectionable.

Offensive conduct may include, but is not limited to, offensive jokes, slurs, epithets or name calling, physical assaults or threats, intimidation, ridicule or mockery, insults or put-downs, offensive objects or pictures, and interference with work performance.

You are off by 1 year. They don't apply if you are 39.

http://www.eeoc.gov/laws/types...

Age discrimination involves treating someone (an applicant or employee) less favorably because of his or her age.

The Age Discrimination in Employment Act (ADEA) only forbids age discrimination against people who are age 40 or older. It does not protect workers under the age of 40, although some states do have laws that protect younger workers from age discrimination.

You're spouting nonsense. There is nothing about "minorities" in the Federal law, which takes precedence.

http://www.eeoc.gov/laws/pract...
http://www.eeoc.gov/laws/statu...

You're spouting nonsense. There is nothing about "minorities" in the Federal law, which takes precedence.

http://www.eeoc.gov/laws/pract...
http://www.eeoc.gov/laws/statu...

It does not work — despite decades of efforts, Blacks and womyn still earn less than others — for whatever reasons.

It causes ugly discrimination of other kinds — with government contracts officially favoring womyn-run businesses and colleges openly penalizing certain races.

It costs businesses billions to avoid such lawsuits, and millions more in damages and fees when the avoidance-efforts fail. And not just businesses — government agencies too pay (with our monies) to avoid being sued. Even worse, the prosecutions by the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission are of the "guilty until proven innocent" variety, with most targets agreeing to settle because the Executive can run them out of business before Judiciary gets to even hear the accusations.

And finally, even if it weren't for the failures and abuses, the whole idea is immoral, because it seeks to punish thoughtcrimes — one is guilty, because one had (or is suspected of having had) certain illegal thoughts.

Can we just stop this nonsense? If Tata — or anyone — want to discriminate, let them...

According to the EEOC (Equal Employment Opportunity Commission), blanket policies against all felonies are discrimination, under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964.

EEOC Enforcement Guidance

Blanket policies are racially discriminatory.

That being said, if you're caucasian, you probably won't be able to get anyone to pick up the case. The ACLU won't touch it.

The felony is only supposed to be discriminated against if it affects the job position, i.e., if you rob a bank, you shouldn't be allowed to work in a bank, etc.

They also ban felons from getting professiona licenses (such as a plumber's or electrician's license), getting SNAP food benefits, TANF benefits if they have kids, student loans, etc. Unless the state has passed legislation opting out of the ban, like many have.

It's not right, felonies weren't meant to become life sentences in most cases, but this has the effect of becoming a life sentence. And they wonder why people return to crime... it's because they have no other means of supporting themselves.

Seattle,WA passed a law making it illegal to ask about felonies until you've been given an offer of employment.

I don't think your example is overt enough to be considered discrimination.

http://www.eeoc.gov/eeoc/syste...

Examples of systemic practices include: discriminatory barriers in recruitment and hiring; discriminatorily restricted access to management trainee programs and to high level jobs; exclusion of qualified women from traditionally male dominated fields of work; disability discrimination such as unlawful pre-employment inquiries; age discrimination in reductions in force and retirement benefits; and compliance with customer preferences that result in discriminatory placement or assignments.

A special "fast track to management" program for newly hired college grads is an example of systemic discrimination because it's restricted (e.g. discriminatory) to something that correlates strongly with age, putting older workers at a disadvantage for promotion to management.

If you changed your example so that ONLY word of mouth was used for hiring, and you COULD NOT be hired without a recommendation from an existing person, that would be systemic.

The whole point of "systemic" discrimination is that there's a system in place to enforce it.

The definition of harassment, at least where I live, is "unwanted sexual advances", meaning the distinction between flirting and harassment is purely based on subjective experience.

It was in the late eighties when someone pinned a single life sized autographed strip club poster in the packing barn of my father's farm.
It wasn't long before every inch of open wall was papered over --- and a low-key arms race ongoing to see who could come closest to the X-rated line, without crossing over.
There had always been kids about the place, we began hiring women who didn't know our family well and weren't in on the joke, which had long since stopped being funny, and for our wholesale customers and suppliers this was our place of business.

It is unlawful to harass a person (an applicant or employee) because of that person's sex. Harassment can include ''sexual harassment'' or unwelcome sexual advances, requests for sexual favors, and other verbal or physical harassment of a sexual nature.

Harassment does not have to be of a sexual nature, however, and can include offensive remarks about a personâ(TM)s sex. For example, it is illegal to harass a woman by making offensive comments about women in general.

Both victim and the harasser can be either a woman or a man, and the victim and harasser can be the same sex.

Although the law doesn't prohibit simple teasing, offhand comments, or isolated incidents that are not very serious, harassment is illegal when it is so frequent or severe that it creates a hostile or offensive work environment or when it results in an adverse employment decision (such as the victim being fired or demoted).

The harasser can be the victim's supervisor, a supervisor in another area, a co-worker, or someone who is not an employee of the employer, such as a client or customer.

Sexual Harassment

Good luck trying to find a girlfriend without "harassing" anyone!

Like I said, "Loser."

Who visits slashdot.org?

They used this definition: http://www.eeoc.gov/laws/types...

Looking at questions 32-35 in the online survey, question 32 suggests a variety of encounters one of which is referred to as harassment, then retroactively describes them all as harrassment in question 35. It is entirely possible respondents interpreted this series of questions differently than the survey creators. The criterion for harassment is the EEOC guide http://www.eeoc.gov/laws/types/sexual_harassment.cfm, but respondents were not informed of that either. Whether or not respondents felt harassed is not explicit in these questions, but part of a criteria the respondents would not necessarily be aware of.

A company large enough where any disparity cannot easily be explained by randomness.

That makes sense given your view that hiring based on gender is illegal.. you'd have to be able to demonstrate the reasonable possibility that it happened by chance.

I'm not sure if you're simple or genuinely ignorant. You know gender (not women) is a protected category for employment, right? That makes having such a policy completely and utterly 100% do not pass go do not collect $200 illegal.

I'm neither simple nor ignorant. While gender is a protected category for employment, that law does not necessarily apply to affirmative action programs. http://www.eeoc.gov/eeoc/foia/...

"In the Civil Rights Act of 1991, Pub.L. No. 102-166, Congress specified that nothing in the Act “shall be construed to affect.affirmative action, or conciliation agreements, that are in accordance with the law.” In short, the Court and Congress have concluded that affirmative action can be a useful tool to combat barriers to equal employment opportunity."

While you may be right that an openly stated policy of "We only hire women, and the reason we do that is to save 30% on labor costs" would be asking for a lawsuit, it seems possible to contrive a way to use affirmative action to end up with an 80% female workforce, thus realizing most of the benefit.

Affirmative action was established by Executive Order 10925, which focusses on data collection. Executive Order 11246 supplanted this order (note that this order has been amended somewhat, but the link on EEOC's website seems to be dead, and I don't have the interest to find the most recent version---it is not necessary to counter your point, and if you really care, you can probably find it yourself). Again, note the emphasis on collecting data regarding existing discrimination, and the lack of any order to conduct "positive discrimination."

Affirmative action was established by Executive Order 10925, which focusses on data collection. Executive Order 11246 supplanted this order (note that this order has been amended somewhat, but the link on EEOC's website seems to be dead, and I don't have the interest to find the most recent version---it is not necessary to counter your point, and if you really care, you can probably find it yourself). Again, note the emphasis on collecting data regarding existing discrimination, and the lack of any order to conduct "positive discrimination."