somethndif
Posts: 136
Joined: 1/1/2004 Status: offline
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quote:
ORIGINAL: amastermind Dan An employer has a history of discrimination. Therefore, the remedy is to force him to discriminate more, with qualified innocent people being the victims. Sounds like the appropriate remedy to me. "You can't be serious". How about just punishing the employer? Fines, denying business licences, etc. Doesn't that make more sense? Keep trying to defend affirmative action. I doubt you will come up with anything. I do think that in some cases, some affirmative action makes sense and should be an available remedy, and I do not believe that requiring an employer to remedy past discrimination is requiring that employer to discriminate more, as you so misleadingly put it. But as I said earlier, affirmative action is dead; it is not being used in the U.S. any more to my knowledge, so there is no reason for me to defend it. And under U.S. law employers are not fined for unlawful discrimination, nor are they denied business licenses. Presumably denying the company a business license would put the company out of business, so I am very surprised you would even suggest that. I certainly don't endose putting an employer out of business because it was found to have engaged in unlawful discrimination. Rather, under U.S. law, the person who is the victim of the discrimination is entitled to reinstatement to the job he or she would have had, but for the unlawful discrimination, back pay to make up for the lost wages suffered as a result of the unlawful discrimination, compensation for the emotional distress of having been the victim of unlawful discrimination, and attorneys fees and costs. In a few, very rare cases, punitive damages may be awarded in an amount determined by the jury, and this could be viewed as a fine, but the discrimination victim, not the government receives the punitive damage award, in those few cases where punitive damages are awarded. Under U.S. law, there are statutory caps on the amount of non-economic damages, including punitive damages. For companies with less than 100 employees, the cap is $50,000. These monetary remedies for unlawful discrimination are, I think, entirely appropriate. The victim of unlawful discrimination may also be able to obtain from the court what is called injunctive relief, a court order to the employer who unlawfully discriminated, ordering the employer to stop its discriminatory practices. MM, it appears that you would do away with all of the discrimination laws and allow employers to discriminate against women, African-Americans, Jews, the disabled, etc. I have not heard even the most right-wing members of Congress advocating such a position. Are you a member of the KKK, the John Birch Society, a Dittohead? Dan
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