This: "will get sued" is obviously not true. The EEOC filed exactly 143 discrimination lawsuits last year. Only 25 of them are systemic. Are you contending that there are only 25 (or 143) companies in the U.S. without population-equal racial distributions? I find it puzzling that your usual skepticism seems so diminished on some topics.
Are Americans so used now to ordinary crime such as open-air drug use, vehicle break-ins or shoplifting going unpunished that they find it difficult to imagine certain punishment for white-collar crime such as discriminatory hiring? Good heavens. Are you aware that companies have legal departments and/or retain legal services to tell them exactly what they must be doing to avoid getting sued by EEOC (among other agencies)? They pay big money for this. Of course there won't be many suits.
Actually, the logic is here is that a company can't guarantee they avoid getting sued. They are all constantly competing with other companies not to be the ones that the EEOC aims its limited enforcement resources at.
Indeed, but that was not REF's point above. EEOC suits being largely randomly distributed and limited by its resources is completely consistent with what I wrote.
But is it really least woke? Or are the 25 targets of EEOC's, "systemic discrimination" lawsuits last year actually doing something truly egregious? I have no idea. I suspect that nobody else here does either.
The EEOC is probably not perfectly optimizing any algorithm, including going after the most "egregious". One of my critiques of Hanania is he highlighted a lot of idiotic lawsuits filed by the EEOC while downplaying the fact that they lost. So the EEOC doesn't do a great job of target selection, but our actual legal system is not just whatever the EEOC attempts.
There are 33M businesses in the U.S. So you are 100x more likely to be hit by lightning than to have your business sued by the EEOC. There are no businesses whose racial makeup matches the demographics of the U.S. Some companies are obviously making an effort towards racial makeup. Others are obviously not. That the EEOC is only suing 25 companies (up 50% from the year before), essentially guarantees that _it_ is not the reason why.
Businesses with under 100 employees are not subject to most EEOC rules (which is why hire-by-startup-acquisition is a thing) so your number is actively misleading.
Thank you for making my point for me. So, 99.8% of companies hire somewhat diverse staffs with absolutely non fear of EEOC reprisal (because EEOC cannot sue them) and the remainder (~166K companies) also have no fear of reprisal because the chance of being sued is only 3x higher than the chance of being struck by lightning.
Pfui. 99.8% of "companies" are mom-and-pop businesses and single proprietorships with zero to one employees. They can't average even 5 employees, as the result would be larger than the whole American workforce.
The percentage of companies is an irrelevant statistic. A more relevant one would be the percentage of employees working for a company getting sued. A large fraction of all people work for one of the few biggest companies, and the risk of those companies getting sued affects them all.
And getting sued by the EEOC isn't the only risk, another one is getting sued by (former) employees, who may once again use arguments about statistical disparities and the company being insufficiently woke as evidence of discrimination.
A small percentage of people work for large companies. (71% work for companies of 4 employees or less). Also, EEOC isn’t suing employees for systemic discrimination. The conversation you’re commenting on is about corporate hiring decisions.
Your point about "getting sued by the EEOC" is very well taken and has important implications not recognized in many of these comments. First, the vast, vast majority of federal anti-discrimination lawsuits are brought by individuals, not the EEOC. Typically, employment defense lawyers will handle a handful of EEOC-plaintiff cases in their careers but hundreds of single- and multi-plaintiff cases. Second, almost all states have anti-discrimination laws modeled on Title VII, and most cover much smaller companies. In some states (California, for example), the state laws and state court system are so much more favorable to plaintiffs that plaintiff-side employment lawyers will actively *avoid" pleading claims under Title VII (or other federal laws) and do what they can to avoid litigating in federal court. Between the two categories - federal lawsuits brought by individuals (not the EEOC) and state lawsuits not involving the EEOC at all - we're talking thousands upon thousands of lawsuits. That is where the "systemic" effects of these laws are, not in the minuscule fraction of cases actually brought by the EEOC.
The gist of your (Candide III) point is correct, although the threshold for the application of Title VII is 15 employees. Keep in mind that most states have anti-discrimination laws modeled on Title VII (often with more protected categories) that apply to much smaller employers. The "systemic" pressure on employers is not from EEOC-plaintiff lawsuits but from the many thousands of discrimination lawsuits filed by others, in federal and state court.
HR exists as legal protection for employers, and their jobs are incentivized to limit legal liability even when it doesn't make cost-benefit sense. Hearing that another employer got sued for exactly what you are doing has a chilling effect, even if it's unlikely you will actually be sued.
This: "will get sued" is obviously not true. The EEOC filed exactly 143 discrimination lawsuits last year. Only 25 of them are systemic. Are you contending that there are only 25 (or 143) companies in the U.S. without population-equal racial distributions? I find it puzzling that your usual skepticism seems so diminished on some topics.
Are Americans so used now to ordinary crime such as open-air drug use, vehicle break-ins or shoplifting going unpunished that they find it difficult to imagine certain punishment for white-collar crime such as discriminatory hiring? Good heavens. Are you aware that companies have legal departments and/or retain legal services to tell them exactly what they must be doing to avoid getting sued by EEOC (among other agencies)? They pay big money for this. Of course there won't be many suits.
Actually, the logic is here is that a company can't guarantee they avoid getting sued. They are all constantly competing with other companies not to be the ones that the EEOC aims its limited enforcement resources at.
Indeed, but that was not REF's point above. EEOC suits being largely randomly distributed and limited by its resources is completely consistent with what I wrote.
Rather than "largely random", the idea seems to be it's against the least woke big target. Something like truncation selection https://westhunt.wordpress.com/2013/11/16/truncation-selection/
But is it really least woke? Or are the 25 targets of EEOC's, "systemic discrimination" lawsuits last year actually doing something truly egregious? I have no idea. I suspect that nobody else here does either.
The EEOC is probably not perfectly optimizing any algorithm, including going after the most "egregious". One of my critiques of Hanania is he highlighted a lot of idiotic lawsuits filed by the EEOC while downplaying the fact that they lost. So the EEOC doesn't do a great job of target selection, but our actual legal system is not just whatever the EEOC attempts.
There are 33M businesses in the U.S. So you are 100x more likely to be hit by lightning than to have your business sued by the EEOC. There are no businesses whose racial makeup matches the demographics of the U.S. Some companies are obviously making an effort towards racial makeup. Others are obviously not. That the EEOC is only suing 25 companies (up 50% from the year before), essentially guarantees that _it_ is not the reason why.
Businesses with under 100 employees are not subject to most EEOC rules (which is why hire-by-startup-acquisition is a thing) so your number is actively misleading.
Thank you for making my point for me. So, 99.8% of companies hire somewhat diverse staffs with absolutely non fear of EEOC reprisal (because EEOC cannot sue them) and the remainder (~166K companies) also have no fear of reprisal because the chance of being sued is only 3x higher than the chance of being struck by lightning.
Pfui. 99.8% of "companies" are mom-and-pop businesses and single proprietorships with zero to one employees. They can't average even 5 employees, as the result would be larger than the whole American workforce.
You can google stuff instead of making it up, you know. 71% of businesses are 1-4 employees.
The percentage of companies is an irrelevant statistic. A more relevant one would be the percentage of employees working for a company getting sued. A large fraction of all people work for one of the few biggest companies, and the risk of those companies getting sued affects them all.
And getting sued by the EEOC isn't the only risk, another one is getting sued by (former) employees, who may once again use arguments about statistical disparities and the company being insufficiently woke as evidence of discrimination.
A small percentage of people work for large companies. (71% work for companies of 4 employees or less). Also, EEOC isn’t suing employees for systemic discrimination. The conversation you’re commenting on is about corporate hiring decisions.
Your point about "getting sued by the EEOC" is very well taken and has important implications not recognized in many of these comments. First, the vast, vast majority of federal anti-discrimination lawsuits are brought by individuals, not the EEOC. Typically, employment defense lawyers will handle a handful of EEOC-plaintiff cases in their careers but hundreds of single- and multi-plaintiff cases. Second, almost all states have anti-discrimination laws modeled on Title VII, and most cover much smaller companies. In some states (California, for example), the state laws and state court system are so much more favorable to plaintiffs that plaintiff-side employment lawyers will actively *avoid" pleading claims under Title VII (or other federal laws) and do what they can to avoid litigating in federal court. Between the two categories - federal lawsuits brought by individuals (not the EEOC) and state lawsuits not involving the EEOC at all - we're talking thousands upon thousands of lawsuits. That is where the "systemic" effects of these laws are, not in the minuscule fraction of cases actually brought by the EEOC.
The gist of your (Candide III) point is correct, although the threshold for the application of Title VII is 15 employees. Keep in mind that most states have anti-discrimination laws modeled on Title VII (often with more protected categories) that apply to much smaller employers. The "systemic" pressure on employers is not from EEOC-plaintiff lawsuits but from the many thousands of discrimination lawsuits filed by others, in federal and state court.
It's more like "kill one, terrify a thousand". While the risk of being sued is low, the consequences are devastating.
HR exists as legal protection for employers, and their jobs are incentivized to limit legal liability even when it doesn't make cost-benefit sense. Hearing that another employer got sued for exactly what you are doing has a chilling effect, even if it's unlikely you will actually be sued.