Assignment:
Stopping Discrimination through Corporate Pledges
In his 2014 State of the Union Address, President Obama announced that he had secured voluntary pledges from a number of major U.S. companies to not discriminate against applicants who are currently unemployed. In seeking employment, those who are jobless, particularly those who have been unemployed for a significant period of time, often face discrimination based on their employment status. Legislative attempts to ban such discriminatory practices have met with limited success and offer narrow protections against express exclusions of the unemployed in help-wanted ads.
Questions
1. What are the advantages of the corporate pledge approach to protecting against emerging areas of discrimination? Explain.
2. Assume that a job applicant at one of the U.S. companies that had pledged not to discriminate against the unemployed was rejected because she has been jobless for over two years. Would the applicant have any recourse? Explain.