Welcome to CL basic law, today we’re talking about discrimination. First q is, what is discrimination? Discrimination is a legal definition, we’re not talking about the dictionary definition because we’ve all been discriminated against one way or another, basic definition of discrimination in the dictionary is that I'm treated unfairly compared to others around me- and that happens all the time- that is not illegal. What is illegal is being discriminated ina fashion that has been defined under law as being illegal. Alright what’s illegal, what’s the def of illegal discrimination- it’s discriminating against somebody because theyre in a protected clas. What is a protected class? A protected class is gender, nationality, race, religion, those are the fundamental one and that is expanded and the law has come in and defined those as being a protected class, and as an employer or maybe in housing and other areas you cannot discriminate against somebody because they fall into that class- you can make an adverse decision with regards to them as long as that decision is based on something other than the fact that the person falls within that class and that a component of your decision is not the fact that the person is in a protected class that i just defined. Be aware that both federal and state laws against discrimination states tend to be broader than the federal government but one can be liable under both federal and state law. So when your looking at whether you have a claim or not for discrimination look at both federal and state law, and when we’re talking about discrimination we almost definitely see it under race gender religion those are the primary areas that someone was not given a job because of their race, not given a promotion because of their gender, a woman was not paid equal pay because of her gender and so forth. And also you can discriminate against someone of the same protected class that you are. As a white male i can discriminate against another WM and be liable for that discrimination and i cannot use it as a defense that i can’t discriminate against somebody in the same PC. of course i said nope you can do it and it does happen. As a wrap up, what discrimination is, or what it is composed of is 2 fundamental elements, 1) a person is discriminated because they’re in a protected class and 2 there’s a showing that they are being discriminated ie treated differently. In the workforce to use as an example you have 15 people from Canada and 1 from Argentina and the person from Argentina is treated differently than the people from Canada then you have the ability to show discrimination. However if everyone is treated poorly and the fact that the person from arg is the only person from arg but she’s treated the same as everybody else that isn’t discrimination. I hope this was helpful, thank you.
