June 26th, 2008
This is not positive discrimination
Harriet Harperson’s proposals to prevent frivolous lawsuits from people passed over for jobs because they (wrongly) perceive there is some form of gender or race discrimination are sensible. A firm should be able to, for example, pick a woman from an set of equally qualified people to counter an uneven gender ratio. Positive discrimination is picking a lesser-qualified candidate over a more-qualified candidate. While positive discrimination is still discrimination and is thus illiberal (it restricts equality of opportunity), Harperson’s proposals do not discriminate on gender or ethnicity.
Of course, if the burden is on the company to prove the two candidates are equally qualified and differ only in gender, then we are back at square one.
