Employment Discrimination

Types of discrimination at work

US law recognizes several distinct forms. Most real claims combine two or three.

• [Disparate treatment](/glossary/disparate-treatment/): intentionally treating someone worse because of a protected characteristic. A store manager who only schedules younger workers for customer-facing shifts is a typical example.
• Disparate impact: a neutral-looking rule that screens out a protected group at a much higher rate and is not justified by the job. A requirement that every warehouse picker lift 75 pounds, when the job rarely requires more than 35, can fall here.
• Harassment: unwelcome conduct based on a protected characteristic that is severe or pervasive enough to create a hostile work environment, or where submitting to it becomes a condition of employment.
• Failure to accommodate: refusing a reasonable accommodation for disability, pregnancy-related limitations or religious practice when it would not cause undue hardship.
• Retaliation: punishing someone for complaining about discrimination, filing a charge or supporting a coworker's complaint. It is the most commonly filed claim with the EEOC.
• Association discrimination: treating someone worse because of their relationship with a person in a protected group, such as a spouse of a different race or a child with a disability.

Which laws prohibit it

At the federal level, Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 covers race, color, religion, sex and national origin. The ADEA covers age 40 and older, the ADA covers disability, the Equal Pay Act covers sex-based pay differences, GINA covers genetic information, and the Pregnant Workers Fairness Act covers pregnancy-related accommodations. Section 1981 of the Civil Rights Act of 1866 separately prohibits race discrimination in contracts, including employment, with no employer size limit.

Each group these laws protect is a protected class. State and local laws usually add more, often at lower employer size thresholds. Rules vary by state and country, so the list that applies depends on where your employees and applicants are.

Where discrimination shows up in hiring

Most recruiting teams do not set out to discriminate. The problems come from habits and shortcuts that feel efficient:

• Job ads with phrases like "digital native" or "recent graduate," which signal an age preference.
• Screening on proxies, such as zip code, graduation year, employment gaps or name.
• Unstructured interviews, where different candidates get different questions and "culture fit" becomes a reason no one can explain.
• Illegal questions about marriage, children, religion, citizenship (beyond work authorization), health or arrest records.
• Assessments with cut scores that were never validated for the job.
• Inconsistent background check decisions, where similar records lead to different outcomes for different people.
• Automated screening tools trained on past hiring data that reproduce past patterns.

In high-volume hiring, each of these can affect hundreds of applicants a month before anyone notices. That is why monitoring selection rates by stage matters more at scale than individual intent.

How discrimination claims are proven

Direct evidence, such as a manager saying "we need someone younger," is rare. Most disparate treatment cases use circumstantial evidence. The applicant shows they belonged to a protected group, were qualified, were rejected, and the employer kept looking or hired someone outside the group. The employer then states a legitimate, nondiscriminatory reason. The applicant wins if they can show that reason is a pretext, for example because it was applied only to them or changed over time.

Disparate impact cases are statistical. A common first screen is the four-fifths rule: if one group's selection rate is less than 80% of the highest group's rate, regulators treat that as evidence of adverse impact. The employer must then show the practice is job-related and consistent with business necessity.

In both cases, the employer's records decide the outcome. A scorecard filled in at the time of the interview is worth far more than a recollection written after a charge arrives.

How HR teams prevent it

• Write job requirements from a job analysis, and keep only requirements you can tie to real duties.
• Use structured interviews with the same questions, the same scoring guide and at least two raters where possible.
• Validate assessments for each role family and check pass rates by group at least twice a year.
• Train every interviewer before they interview, then refresh annually. Short, scenario-based training works better than long slide decks.
• Build a clear accommodation process for candidates and employees, with a named contact.
• Investigate complaints promptly and protect the person who complained from retaliation.
• Audit automated tools before deployment and on a regular schedule, and keep the results.

Common mistakes

• Assuming good intentions are a defense. Disparate impact does not require intent.
• Letting hiring managers override structured scores without a written reason. Overrides are where bias concentrates.
• Firing someone soon after they complain. Even if the reason is legitimate, the timing invites a retaliation claim. Document performance issues as they happen, not after.
• Treating a staffing agency as a shield. Clients and agencies can both be liable for the same decision.