The Depth of Anti-Discrimination Laws
April 28, 2008 by thursday
Filed under Business News
Image details: Two male doctors putting together a statue of a DNA strand served by picapp.com
In high school, I had to read Kurt Vonnegut’s classic short story, “Harrison Bergeron.” For those of you who haven’t read it, allow me to provide the premise — I’ll try not to spoil it because I think it’s worth reading.
Essentially, the story is set in a dystopia, where equality is not only encouraged, but required. The best and brightest are made equal with the rest of society through a series of handicaps — distracting noises for intelligent people, weights for strong people, ugly masks for pretty people.
I bring up “Harrison Bergeron” because of several articles that crossed my desk this weekend, that imply a certain level of enforced equality. While we aren’t taking things to such an extreme (yet), I do think it’s worth questioning each step we take towards imposing equality: in my opinion, diversity should be greatly valued as well.
Last week, the Senate voted to pass H.R. 493 — the Genetic Information Nondiscrimination Act. This piece of legislation effectively states that an employer cannot discriminate against an employee (or potential employee) on the basis of their genetics. And yes, I’m in favor of preventing discrimination to the furthest extent that we can. But I think that caution is in order: genetics are about more than the color of your eyes or the shape of your ears. Genetics can affect your allergies, your tendencies toward certain diseases and a multitude of other factors that honestly affect your ability to do your work.
I don’t think it’s ridiculous for a florist to ask applicants whether they are allergic to flowers or pollen — depending on the severity of a person’s allergies, working at a florist’s day in and day out could put their health at risk.
What do you think? Is a flat out ban on asking a potential employee about their genetic information called for? Is it reasonable to allow employers to ask questions that could protect both themselves and their employees?
Hi Thursday, Asking someone if they’re allergic to flowers is far different from looking at their genetic test and seeing that there is a POSSIBILITY that they may become allergic to them.
Beyond that, I don’t attribute the highest ethics to many corporations, let alone insurance companies. I think that there is every chance that companies would refuse to hire, and insurers to insure, people predisposed toward any serious illness (cancer, heart problems, etc.) that MIGHT occur during the course of their tenure that would adversely affect insurance rates. Not because the person WOULD be stricken, but because they MIGHT be.
If I recall this concern prompted the legislation in the first place.
But an employer isn’t allowed to ask about any medical conditions — including allergies. And there are cases when might-be situations could be pretty worrying: what if your airplane pilot had a genetic tendency to a disease that could cause them to lose consciousness? Is that something that’s fair to ask about, considering that condition could put a hundred other lives at risk?
I agree that there are plenty of situations in which employers don’t need to know their employees’ genetic tendencies, but I have to ask if there are some situations in which that information is important?
Why should an employer be allowed to ask about a genetic predisposition that may never happen when we’ve already decided that they can’t ask about existing conditions? As to the airline pilot, s/he’d need to have the disease, which would be caught during routine physicals, not just be prone to it.
But, legally, employers can’t fire an employee after learning about such a condition, either.
And maybe this is just modern tv speaking — I probably watch too much House for my own good — but can’t some of those diseases become active fairly suddenly?
For the most part, I’m just trying to play devil’s advocate here: but these are questions that don’t seem to be discussed extensively. They’re practically taboo. Just because we want to protect employees’ rights doesn’t mean that these questions shouldn’t come up.
Thursday, there are many ways to get rid of an employee without stating the real reason. And insurance companies will hike rates “just in case.” Anyone can keel over from an aneurysm, but I haven’t heard of that causing an air crash and as far as I know genetic testing wouldn’t catch that anyway. Genetic predisposition are usually about catastrophic illnesses that last a long time and cost a lot of money—and may never happen. but given today’s employer attitudes towards insurance, the insurance industry’s attitude toward illness, and the stupidity, IMHO, of our so-called healthcare system I think it’s a good law, without it many people wouldn’t take advantage of the testing, even though it could save their life.