I was reading this article over at
Business Week about some things managers need to keep in mind when hiring or laying off staff. The first point the author makes really caught my eye as being somewhat interesting. The author notes that, according to law, if you fire an ethnic minority worker, for reasons entirely irrelevant of the background, you could still find yourself in legal trouble "disparate impact" issues. Specifically, firing an ethnic minority affects the statistical make-up of ethnicities in your company; therefore in certain situations this could be considered a form of discrimination.
The question I want to pose to you, oh faithful reader, is the following: is this indeed a form of discrimination? Or merely more American, over sensitive, P.C. nonsense? If a worker is incompetent at their job, and deserves to be fired, surely their ethnic background should not have anything to do with the decision. But wait, dig a little deeper. If the laying off of a singular ethnic minority worker affects the company’s ethnic make-up so deeply, does this imply a fundamental discriminatory policy towards hiring workers?
Food for thought; let's hear you sound off in the comments.
- Manuel
