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'Old white guy' can move forward with workplace bias suit against AT&T

reuters.com

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Re: 'Old white guy' can move forward with workplace bias suit against AT&T

#61

Post by CodeSgt »

TeaDrunk wrote: post #42
slg wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>> Employees who have historically been entrenched in the majority are also entitled to protection under laws that were intended to assure equal treatment for women and racial minorities. >To me this is obvious. A plain reading of EOCC employment discrimination regulations make this obvious. I don't necessarily disagree, but I think this is less obvious when looking at how they define age discrimination. Specifically…

I think part of this is that, obviously it is totally fine to discriminate based on age. Children aren't allowed to work, vote, buy certain items, etc. You're also not allowed certain public offices if you're too young.

The difference is that we can conclusively show that children are intellectually under developed.

Old people are often just as intelligent as their younger colleagues, and often wiser as well. Of course there are exceptions, but there are poor performers at every age bracket for a variety of reasons.

Re: 'Old white guy' can move forward with workplace bias suit against AT&T

#62

Post by prepend »

striking wrote: post #17
__blockcipher__ wrote: post #5

> You can call it the paradox of the old white guy: Employees who have historically been entrenched in the majority are also entitled to protection under laws that were intended to assure equal treatment for women and racial minorities. These laws are still protecting the equal treatment, since the whole "diversity and inclusion" thing is explicitly about giving unequal (more favorable) treatment to people who aren't…

> the whole "diversity and inclusion" thing is explicitly about giving unequal (more favorable) treatment to people who aren't white/male/cis It's too bad you see it that way when in a lot of cases it's explicitly about giving equal consideration to everyone rather than giving anyone more favorable treatment. Not every case, obviously, but that shouldn't invalidate attempting to level the playing field.

I think equal consideration should be given regardless of race and think DEI departments can be forces of good and improve organizations.

However, my limited experience with them is I can’t figure out their data driven decisions. For example, my org is 25% African American and 70% female and DEI gave a presentation on underrepresentation in the workplace and how we need to shift hiring to increase African American and female new hires. When asked to square this goal with our current employment demographics they made some hand waving about “looking into the data” and when the questioner refined their question to say the data already is gathered and seems clear the DEI head didn’t answer and just moved on.

Not sure what their goal is.

Re: 'Old white guy' can move forward with workplace bias suit against AT&T

#63

Post by umeshunni »

MontyCarloHall wrote: post #13

>The complaint recounts an incident, for instance, about Johnson telling DiBenedetto in 2020 that he expected to retire in a couple of years. DiBenedetto said he was interested in applying for his boss’ job. Johnson allegedly noted DiBenedetto’s short "runway." According to DiBenedetto, the boss said, “In these roles, you know, you've got to be able to adapt and move, and I'm not saying you can't, but a 58-year-old w…

A more DEI-aware workplace might have phrased it better and said something like "Sorry Bob, but we're trying to hire more diverse candidates for these roles"

Re: 'Old white guy' can move forward with workplace bias suit against AT&T

#64

Post by tomhoward »

slg wrote: post #25
yieldcrv wrote: post #3

> Employees who have historically been entrenched in the majority are also entitled to protection under laws that were intended to assure equal treatment for women and racial minorities. To me this is obvious. A plain reading of EOCC employment discrimination regulations make this obvious. The mere fact that this is deemed as "novel" or newsworthy or intriguing is a poor reflection of society itself. Fortunately the…

>> Employees who have historically been entrenched in the majority are also entitled to protection under laws that were intended to assure equal treatment for women and racial minorities. >To me this is obvious. A plain reading of EOCC employment discrimination regulations make this obvious. I don't necessarily disagree, but I think this is less obvious when looking at how they define age discrimination. Specifically…

It’s at least valid to consider a young person insufficiently experienced for the job, as long as the hiring decision is legitimately made according to experience not numerical age alone.

Re: 'Old white guy' can move forward with workplace bias suit against AT&T

#65

Post by derevaunseraun »

favorited wrote: post #38
derevaunseraun wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Yet I'm classified as "white", which is absurd and shows that racial groups are absurd, and not even a scientifically acknowledged phenomenon, but just a social construct Who's doing the classifying? Most of the time it's you checking a box in some application form If it's just a social construct, theoretically what's stopping you from identifying as a different race? An honor system? Since there is no legal assign…

> If it's just a social construct, theoretically what's stopping you from identifying as a different race? Because that social construct doesn't involve self-selection. The construct is that society puts people into racial buckets.

> The construct is that society puts people into racial buckets.

So let's say you apply for a job somewhere and they ask the race question on the job application. I highly doubt that interviewers are given this information. Who exactly is holding people accountable in this system?

Re: 'Old white guy' can move forward with workplace bias suit against AT&T

#66

Post by [deleted] »

imgabe wrote: post #16
Kerrick wrote: post #6

> The company’s lawyers at Kilpatrick Townsend & Stockton also argued that DiBenedetto could not simultaneously assert a claim of racial discrimination under the Civil Rights Act and age discrimination under the Age Discrimination of Employment Act because both laws require proof that the plaintiff would not have been injured but for the particular version of discrimination each law prohibits. Because DiBenedetto all…

Not that it’s legal, but that the way the laws are written precludes claiming both at the same time. > both laws require proof that the plaintiff would not have been injured but for the particular version of discrimination each law prohibits So the racial discrimination requires proof that you would not have been injured except for the racial discrimination. But if there is age discrimination, then you would still ha…

[deleted]

Re: 'Old white guy' can move forward with workplace bias suit against AT&T

#67

Post by etchalon »

> Diversity and inclusion, she said, are the whole point of federal civil rights law. But AT&T’s allegedly “rigid reliance on the company’s internal demographics,” Cannon wrote, plausibly implied — at this early stage of DiBenedetto’s case — that his bosses “unlawfully considered his race and gender when terminating him under the pretext of financial strain.”

It sounds like, essentially, this judge is allowing the argument that attempting to rectify discrimination is illegal unless you can do so without generating new discrimination.

And I'm very excited to hear people who think that's possible.

Re: 'Old white guy' can move forward with workplace bias suit against AT&T

#68

Post by colordrops »

helloworld11 wrote: post #39
colordrops wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sure. The biggest flaw in all this thinking is that an individual should suffer because an arbitrary grouping they're placed in historically has been abusive or advantaged, even if the individual is neither. And the groupings are usually flawed. For instance I'm an Arab, and have been discriminated against and even beaten for it. My ancestors are not Yale alumni ex-slave owner families, and I've never gotten a job fo…

I don't speak for your family history in a personal sense and I get your main point about the ridiculous absurdity of racial groupings, but Islamic states and kingdoms which include the Arabic peninsula, were also notorious slave states for centuries. Again, despite many PC narratives, slavery was hardly the exclusive province of European colonial powers working against oppressed others around the world. Again though…

My family are poor christians from a 2000 year old farming village in southern lebanon who almost certainly nothing to do with the Islamic slave trade. But I get your point.

Re: 'Old white guy' can move forward with workplace bias suit against AT&T

#69

Post by chitowneats »

umeshunni wrote: post #63
MontyCarloHall wrote: post #13

>The complaint recounts an incident, for instance, about Johnson telling DiBenedetto in 2020 that he expected to retire in a couple of years. DiBenedetto said he was interested in applying for his boss’ job. Johnson allegedly noted DiBenedetto’s short "runway." According to DiBenedetto, the boss said, “In these roles, you know, you've got to be able to adapt and move, and I'm not saying you can't, but a 58-year-old w…

A more DEI-aware workplace might have phrased it better and said something like "Sorry Bob, but we're trying to hire more diverse candidates for these roles"

The way they've bastardized the definition of the word "diverse" so thoroughly among American institutions is really something to behold.

Re: 'Old white guy' can move forward with workplace bias suit against AT&T

#70

Post by colechristensen »

CodeSgt wrote: post #35
MontyCarloHall wrote: post #13

>The complaint recounts an incident, for instance, about Johnson telling DiBenedetto in 2020 that he expected to retire in a couple of years. DiBenedetto said he was interested in applying for his boss’ job. Johnson allegedly noted DiBenedetto’s short "runway." According to DiBenedetto, the boss said, “In these roles, you know, you've got to be able to adapt and move, and I'm not saying you can't, but a 58-year-old w…

When I initially read that I honestly didn't think it was all that bad. Inappropriate? Yes. Lawsuit worthy? No. But then, I imagined if the same thing were said to a 58 year old black woman, and immediately realized that it's severity. Is it just me, or has racism towards white people become acceptable/main stream (at least, much more so than racism towards other races)? I feel as if my lack of a visceral reaction to…

>Is it just me, or has racism towards white people become acceptable/main stream

Remember when a TV celebrity lunitic got elected president mostly on account of the votes of white people who didn't feel the privilege they were told they all had (regardless if true)?

First the fringe notices, then as the issue gets worse the more moderate people notice and don't say much because it isn't socially acceptable, then it becomes a widely known uncomfortable fact, then it progresses to a point where only a few people are left defending the bad behavior.

^ you can apply the above to just about any social problem where mistreatment goes from the moral imperative to socially unacceptable

What you've done is accidentally sympathized with a core issue of "the other side" (assuming your politics here, apologies if wrong)

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