Quotes & Sayings About Employment Discrimination

In the era of colorblindness, it is no longer socially permissible to use race, explicitly, as a justification for discrimination, exclusion, and social contempt. So we don't. Rather than rely on race, we use our criminal justice system to label people of color "criminals" and then engage in all the practices we supposedly left behind. Today it is perfectly legal to discriminate against criminals in nearly all the ways that it was once legal to discriminate against African Americans. Once you're labeled a felon, the old forms of discrimination - employment discrimination, housing discrimination, denial of the right to vote, denial of educational opportunity, denial of food stamps and other public benefits, and exclusion from jury service - are suddenly legal. As a criminal, you have scarcely more rights, and arguably less respect, than a black man living in Alabama at the height of Jim Crow. We have not ended racial caste in America; we have merely redesigned it. — Michelle Alexander

Mental illness is among the most stigmatized of categories.' People are ashamed of being mentally ill. They fear disclosing their condition to their friends and confidants-and certainly to their employers. — Elyn R. Saks

We have seen a man dragged to death in Texas simply because he was black. A young man murdered in Wyoming simply because he was gay. In the last year alone, we've seen the shootings of African Americans, Asian Americans, and Jewish children simply because of who they were. This is not the American way. We must draw the line. Without delay, we must pass the Hate Crimes Prevention Act and the Employment Non-Discrimination Act. And we should reauthorize the Violence Against Women Act. — William J. Clinton

You may be thinking that your company has a human resources person who will keep you out of trouble. This is a dangerous misconception. Whether your company has a massive Human Resources Department with hundreds of representatives or a small office with just a single representative, these HR reps are not your advocates. They work for the company, not for you. — Johanna Harris

the American Government is in fact enforcing a system of employment on the universities under which they are required, under pain of bankruptcy, to employ members of minority groups in spite of the fact that a better qualified member of a non-minority group is applying for the job...Quotas were considered undesirable when they were used against minority groups; they do not become desirable when they are used against majority groups. Positive discrimination, so called, is still discrimination against somebody; one man's positive discrimination is another man's negative discrimination. Furthermore, who shall define a minority?...Why are some minorities more minor than others? — Hans Jurgen Eysenck

The purpose of affirmative action is to give our nation a way to finally address the systemic exclusion of individuals of talent on the basis of their gender, or race from opportunities to develop, perform, achieve and contribute. Affirmative action is an effort to develop systematic approach to open the doors of education, employment, and business development opportunities to qualified individuals who happen to be members of groups that have experienced long-standing and persistent discrimination. — William J. Clinton

More than 2 million people found themselves behind bars at the turn of the twenty-first century, and millions more were relegated to the margins of mainstream society, banished to a political and social space not unlike Jim Crow, where discrimination in employment, housing, and access to education was perfectly legal, and where they could be denied the right to vote. — Michelle Alexander

It is of the highest importance to provide equal access to the labour market. Governments should act to establish equitable employment standards and penalise racial discrimination. — Tariq Ramadan

I strongly oppose the Employment Non-Discrimination Act. We must stand for the right of every American to practice their faith according to the dictates of their conscience, whether it be in the public square or in the workplace. — Mike Pence

The Journey of Reconciliation was organized not only to devise techniques for eliminating Jim Crow in travel, but also as a training ground for similar peaceful projects against discrimination in such major areas as employment and in the armed services. — Bayard Rustin

Liberals say we should end employment discrimination. I say we should end employment. — Bob Black

Nonetheless, GAO's conclusion that employer sanctions had somehow caused employment discrimination was contradicted by GAO's own Chief of Methodology, who criticized the GAO report ... here is what she said, 'I believe the truth is that we have no strong causal link between IRCA and discrimination, and in [my] view it is just as likely that the discrimination we found has always been there, or that it is spurious, as that IRCA has caused it.' — Alan K. Simpson

Gender equality and empowerment of women is key to the success of the Millennium Development Goals. Not only as a specific target, but for the goals in general. Women bear a heavier burden of the world's poverty than men, because of the discrimination they face in education, health care, employment and control of assets. — Johanna Sigurdardottir

The Employment Non-Discrimination Act (ENDA), which finally passed in the Senate late last year, is a throwback to the 1990s, when ENDA was first introduced; the bill wasn't updated to the times we live in. It exempts businesses owned by religious groups. — Michelangelo Signorile

Many of us, particularly those of us with disabilities who have faced persistent discrimination throughout our lives, not least when trying to find employment in the first place, take enormous pride in our hard-fought jobs and careers. — Stella Young

Like all citizens, Ms. McNeill has the right to be free from unlawful employment practices such as sex discrimination and retaliation. — John Hawkins

Social justice is what faces you in the morning. It is awakening in a house with adequate water supply, cooking facilities and sanitation. It is the ability to nourish your children and send them to school where their education not only equips them for employment but reinforces their knowledge and understanding of their cultural inheritance. It is the prospect of genuine employment and good health: a life of choices and opportunity, free from discrimination. — Mick Dodson

And affirmative action is a very nice term for racial discrimination against better-qualified white people in jobs, employment, promotions and scholarships, and college admittance. — David Duke

South Korea is one of the worst countries when it comes to opportunity for women in social activities and employment. To my disgust, in certain communities in Korea, you cannot even imagine how severe sex discrimination is. — Kim Hyesoon

Any Federal official, who engages in employment discrimination, lacks the moral integrity to evenhandedly enforce our Nation's laws or manage Federal programs. — Tanya Ward Jordan

All people here have political rights, social rights, rights to employment, and no one should face discrimination, but our strategic choice is for traditional families, healthy families and a healthy nation. One does not exclude the other and does not hinder the other. I think this is a balanced approach and is entirely the right approach. — Vladimir Putin

If shackling former prisoners with a lifetime of debt and authorizing discrimination against them in employment, housing, education, and public benefits is not enough to send the message that they are not wanted and not even considered full citizens, then stripping voting rights from those labeled criminals surely gets the point across. — Michelle Alexander

It is true that I opposed quotas in employment, education, and other areas. I consider quotas, whether they favor blacks or whites, men or women, to be a new form of discrimination as bad as the old ones. — Ronald Reagan