I don't understand how it could possibly be legal in the first place since it gives away information that they are not allowed to ask for, such as marital status and sexual orientation.
Wouldn't it be equivalent to divulging that and so much more?
Wouldn't it be equivalent to divulging that and so much more?
Likewise asking for social media password is pretty dangerous even if it's not specifically illegal because it opens you up to claims that you found something on the account that revealed some protected class status.
(And, sadly, Title VII, the federal anti-discrimination law, does not protect against sexual orientation. In many states it is perfectly legal to fire people for being gay. A bill to fix this situation has been stalled in Congress for nearly two decades.)
It is very common for confused employers to claim it is illegal, but as eli described this is an oversimplification and is not actually true.
Don't get me wrong, it is a very bad idea to ask these questions. But it is not illegal, strictly speaking.
Though of course you should still avoid asking questions about someone's protected status!
A quick google finds two examples:
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/07/education/07marquette.html...;
http://www.newschannel5.com/story/13620898/coach-loses-job-a...
The federal law that could fix this: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Employment_Non-Discrimination_A... I would imagine if you pull up the testimony supporting this bill you would find many more examples.
Is it possible that the federal laws have had a normalising affect - the different states may have different laws but majority of companies simply go with federal law as they probably don't even know different.
I would be interested in state by state breakdowns of discrimination suits and see if they compare to each other or uk in any useful way. Google not helping here or my brain too dead.