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Comment by sdinsn | Hacker News Reader

> offering the internship only to second-year students would be age discrimination

This is not true.

> offering it only to full-time college students would be discriminating against people who can't afford to attend college full-time

This is also not true.

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IANAL, but it is only illegal to discriminate against protected classes. It is legal to discriminate against people without college degrees or aren't attending college, just as it is legal to discriminate against smokers, or people who can't code.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Protected_group

The description seems to exclude students with disabilities not matching the filter though.

> IANAL, but it is only illegal to discriminate against protected classes.

Age over 40 is a protected class, and anti-discrimination law protects not only against facially or intentionally discriminatory acts, but also against those with a disparate impact not sufficiently justified by business concerns (though the standard for that is weaker for age discrimination than other workplace discrimination.)

I agree with you on both points, but your comment has no supporting arguments. That's not a good way to discuss anything.

The person I replied to didn't provide any arguments or sources. I encourage him to do his own research before making ignorant, incorrect comments.

They very clearly made the argument that discriminating against older workers is illegal. They're wrong that a program encouraging students constitutes discrimination against older workers, but their post has some substance.

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