Comment by bookaway | Hacker News Reader

Comment by bookaway | Hacker News Reader

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Here's a take that I came across which I'd like your views on if possible:

When the Civil Right Act and Americans with Disabilities Act were created, people asked the government to enforces these acts. Whatever you think of merits of DEI, the government decided to create DEI in order to enforce the Civil Rights Act and Americans with Disabilities act.

The problem is because they decided that DEI would be the mechanism to do this with, once DEI is rescinded the question is: If you're not going to enforce the Civil Right Act and Americans with Disabilities Act through DEI, which mechanism do you plan to use to enforce them? According to this take, once DEI is rescinded there is no mechanism to enforce the Civil Right Act and Americans with Disabilities Act anymore.

I'm pretty sure that most leftwing and rightwing people will agree that out of 3 millions government workers it's not entirely unlikely that there would be some some valid cases of discrimination against minorities and those with disabilities. The claim is that, whether DEI sucks or not, there is no avenue to contest racism and discrimination in government hiring anymore.

The Civil Rights Act and related topics are part of the US Code (laws) [1] and are completely unrelated to DEI. The legal redresses available for discrimination have not changed whatsoever.

The Civil Rights Act is exclusively about equality of opportunity and requires affected employers hire without regard to race, religion, and other protected classes. So for instance universities using racial quotas was deemed unlawful precisely because of the Civil Rights Act.

DEI stuff was in a very different spirit that really ran against the ideals of the Civil Rights Act. For instance it compelled affected organizations to specifically endeavour to hire based on the race and other characteristics of applicants. It's not entirely clear to me why it wasn't tossed immediately as being in violation of the Civil Rights Act.

[1] - https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/42/chapter-21

DEI is a way to avoid disparate impact liability. Such laws / precedent is derived from the Civil Rights Act (VII). So it is quite the opposite. It also means that disparate impact liability will return without DEI / race quotas so unless the new administration also gets rid of disparate impact and the civil rights act this whole thing will end up right back where it started.

Actually, it's still illegal to engage in discrimination even if it's done to avoid disparate impact liability: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ricci_v._DeStefano

This is why disparate impact tends to cause institutions to drop skills based testing entirely. In theory, proof that the test is relevant to the job is supposed to be a defense against allegations of disparate impact. But in practice the courts have rarely accepted that line of defense.

I know that but there is the law and then there is the law in practice. Legal council at companies have been telling them that DEI race quotas was the safe option.

> Whatever you think of merits of DEI, the government decided to create DEI in order to enforce the Civil Rights Act and Americans with Disabilities act.

This part is foundational to the rest, and it's straightforwardly untrue. The government agency which most often enforces these two laws is called the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, which remains active under the new administration; the new acting chair has given no indication that she intends to stop enforcing the Civil Rights Act or the ADA.

Thanks for the info.

Doesn't "revoking the Equal Employment Opportunity executive order" entail that the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission will be affected? [0]

EDIT:

Trump also fired the EEOC chair it seems. Can the commision work with just two commisioners if he doesn't hire a replacement?

“These removals leave the E.E.O.C. without a quorum, which hobbles the agency’s ability to protect workers from unlawful discrimination,” [1][2]

[0] https://archive.is/QHQJD

[1] https://archive.is/C1voe

[2] https://www.lawandtheworkplace.com/2025/01/eeoc-like-nlrb-la...

The "Equal Employment Opportunity executive order" predates the EEOC and doesn't affect its responsibilities.

The EEOC doesn't depend on a quorum for routine enforcement actions. As the last article describes, what it can't do without a quorum is make new rules or issue new guidance, but the new administration will most likely reestablish a quorum soon because there's some existing guidance they'd like to revoke.

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