Hacker News Reader

Comment by canonica | Hacker News Reader

I'm shocked about their questions on their job application form! It's considered illegal to ask those questions in my country because they can be used for discrimination. Is this normal practice in the US?

> What gender identity do you most closely identify with?

> Are you a person of transgender experience?

> Please select the race and/or ethnic identities you identify with

> What sexual orientation do you most closely identify with?

> Do you live with a disability (as outlined by the ADA)?

View on HN

This is extremely normal in the US. Employers (above a certain size threshold) are required to ask these questions, and to report aggregated statistics to the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission on an annual basis.

But employees/candidates are not themselves required to answer the questions. And if they do, employers are forbidden from using the information for discriminatory purposes.

(Realistically, if somebody is intent on discriminating based on race/sex/etc., they're going to do it based on the candidate's self-presentation, regardless of how they answer the questionnaire.)

Orientation and gender identity are new to me, though it’s been a minute since I applied for a job.

Shit's getting weird, man.

I could see it having a place on an intake form. But on a job application? Is it so they can schedule interviews based on your race and gender identity?

I can only speak from personal experience, but whenever I've hired folks, that information was only shared with HR.

Requiring companies to collect these statistics helps add hard data to any future lawsuits. It can provide an insight into whether or not members of protected classes have been systematically discriminated against during certain phases of the hiring process.

Supposedly, these are always survey questions for EEO research. You don't have to answer them as an applicant. Here's a decent breakdown: https://attorneyatlawmagazine.com/public-articles/employment...

It's also illegal for them to make decisions based off these. I have no idea how you would know if they did or not but that's what they say.

I think those are supposed to be for keeping statistics, there's some government place that companies sometimes have to report to.

Of course this somehow ends up with companies using "helps our dei score" as a major criterion for which candidate to pick.

I think the idea here is to use this information to "help" and "include" people, not to discriminate against them.

That is discrimination though. Any use of that info at all for hiring decisions is discrimination.

"discriminate* has two meanings:

* recognize a distinction; differentiate. (Discriminate between)

* make an unjust or prejudicial distinction in the treatment of different categories of people. (Discriminate against)

I meant they current trend is to do the former in order to offset historical use of the latter.

Whether that's fair or whether that will work long term is another question!

You forgot "discriminate in favor of" in your second point and incorrectly attributed the current trend to the first point, although perhaps you're seeing a different trend than me.

No perhaps I wasn't clear. the current trend is clearly "discriminate in favour in order to offset the discrimination against"

"Discriminate as differentiate" was a response to the comment I was replying to who said that "using any information means you'd be discriminating". Well, sure that's technically true but it's missing the point

These questions are optional, in my experience. I’ve never seen a form in a job application where these were required.

When I elected to not fill them in, HR told me that they would answer the questions for me. This was due to a "limitation of the system".

In my country it's absolutely illegal to ask, no matter if voluntary or involuntary.

in the US, it is required top ask, but optional to fill

Reply on news.ycombinator.com