Do you know that some courts impose a different, higher legal standard for discrimination against white employees than for discrimination against African-American employees?
According to these courts, a non-minority employee asserting a claim of race discrimination must demonstrate background circumstances to support the suspicion that the defendant is that “unusual employer who discriminates against the majority.”
This is nonsense. Last I checked, EEOC is the “Equal Employment Opportunity Commission,” not the “Minority Employment Opportunity Commission.” A minority manager is just as capable of committing discrimination as a white manager. The law should not treat “reverse” discrimination any differently.
Discrimination is discrimination, period.
Applying different proof standards depending on the perpetrator of the alleged discrimination re-enforces the very stereotypes that our EEO laws intend to eradicate. Can we please remove from the law this idea of “reverse” discrimination, and just agree that discrimination is wrong regardless of the races of those accused of perpetrating it?
This post originally appeared on the Ohio Employer’s Law Blog, and was written by Jon Hyman, Partner, Meyers, Roman, Friedberg & Lewis. Jon can be reached at via email at jhyman@meyersroman.com, via telephone at 216-831-0042, on LinkedIn, and on Twitter.
