Expert: Michael Troy - 7/5/2004

Question

I am an Israeli law.student writing a paper on the difference between illegal discrimination and permissible distinction. I would like to receive information on laws, court decisions and precedents pertaining to this question in the United States.  

Answer
Hi there,

That is a rather broad topic.  Generally in the US, there are two major areas of discrimination.  Government discrimination, which is controlled by the Equal Protection clause in the 14th Amendment.  The other is laws regarding private discrimination.

The Constitution has been interpreted to prevent government from treating people differently for arbitrary reasons.  In some cases, such as discrimination based on race or sex, the courts have decided to use a higher level of scrutiny so that the government must have stronger justifications for such discrimination.

As for private discrimination, private citizens and companies are pretty much free discriminate in any way they like unless there is an explicit law that says otherwise.  There are federal laws that prevent discrimination in areas of employment, public accommodation (which basically means any business open to the public), and any entity that gets public funds.  The Federal government prevents discrimination in all these areas based on race, ethnicity, sex, or religion, and handicapped status.  To a more limited extent, it sometimes limits discrimination based on veteran status, age, or other factors.   The thing to remember is that all these restrictions are based on statute.  If there is not law that speaks to the issue, the private companies are free to be as discriminatory as they like.

In addition to all this, many states have different laws and Constitutional interpretations that go even further.  Some of them, for example, prohibit discrimination based on one's sexual preferences, or appearance.

For more detailed info, you may find these sites helpful:

http://fatty.law.cornell.edu/topics/civil_rights.html

http://fatty.law.cornell.edu/topics/equal_protection.html

http://fatty.law.cornell.edu/topics/employment_discrimination.html

http://public.findlaw.com/employment_employee/

http://library.lp.findlaw.com/constitutionallaw_7.html

http://www.eeoc.gov/

http://www.ed.gov/about/offices/list/ocr/know.html

I hope this helps!
- Mike