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Comment by astura | Hacker News Reader

Smokers and drinkers are (generally) not a protected class in US employment law whereas pregnant people and older people are [1]

Some states may have additional employment laws that protect smokers.

[1] https://www.eeoc.gov/employers/smallbusiness/faq/who_is_prot...

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It isn’t an EEOC violation, but possibly an ADA one. Discriminating against nicotine addicts might be illegal.

Are you saying that nicotine addiction is or might be classified as a disability under the ADA?

He's saying its one Schizo lawsuit away from being a proxy for discrimination.

"We can't not hire black people but we forbid coconut oil hair product use among employees" How well do you think that would go over in a court?

> An individual with a disability is defined by the ADA as a person who has a physical or mental impairment that substantially limits one or more major life activities, a person who has a history or record of such an impairment, or a person who is perceived by others as having such an impairment.

I’m not sure nicotine addiction fits the bill, what major life activities does it substantially inhibit?

https://www.ada.gov/cguide.htm#anchor62335

what major life activities does it substantially inhibit?

Apparently, holding a job.

Can you discriminate against heroin addicts in hiring?

Drinking can work as a proxy for belonging or not belonging to certain religions. There must be at least enough standing to challenge such a policy in court, if not win the case. Of course the correlation is not r=1, but it is high enough to question whether religion is being targeted by proxy.

Which reminds me that not consuming nicotine and caffeine could be a proxy for being Mormon. So those policies might find their way into courts as well.

Not many religions associated with nicotine, though.

Unless one were to count the Juul cult.

Voodoo and Native American religions use tobacco.

Native Americans would probably disagree

Not that familiar with the specifics of the law here so many someone more knowledgeable can shed some light. Can employers discriminate against non protected classes that are closely correlated with protected classes? For example hiring only non vegetarians, people that drink alcohol etc that correlates with certain religions.

Most likely the ‘legitimate non discriminatory reason’ rule would be applied. Meaning the employer or prospective employer needs only provide an ‘honestly held’ reason for the practice. Although, the Federal Circuit courts are split regarding whether such a reason needs to be objectively reasonable. So (and this is not legal advice) if an employer does not want to hire members from outside of a particular group who happen to be non-consumers of alcPhil for religious reasons, they could site health insurance premiums as a reason to bar all candidates who consumed alcohol, thereby having a sort of shadow ban on people not belonging to that particular group. I think (and again, this doesn’t constitute legal advice) that such a reason would hold up under either the honestly held or objectively reasonable standards in the event of a suit.

— Also, the presentation of evidence under the above standard would be done at summary judgement, before the discrimination issue even got near discovery or trial.

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