Discrimination

Discrimination is argued unfair treatment due to being member of a particular group. The term tends to refer to non-violent and less severe forms of argued mistreatment. Views on what is unfair treatment may vary. Racism and similar phenomena are the typical politically correct argued causes for discrimination.

Definition

The supposedly necessitates actions such as affirmative action in favor of the claimed discriminated group, such as Blacks. However, if assumptions such as all races having equal average IQ are false, then this may imply that the affirmative action discriminates unfairly in favor of Blacks.

Kevin MacDonald has argued that Whites are greatly under-represented and Jews are greatly over-represented as students at elite universities in the United States. The over-representation of Jews was argued to be too large for it to be due to IQ differences. In particular, poor Whites and Whites from non-urban Whites were argued to be discriminated against. "These data strongly suggest that Jewish overrepresentation at elite universities has nothing to do with IQ but with discrimination against non-Jewish White Americans, especially those from the working class or with rural origins." See also Jewish influence.

Feminists may see, for example, laws in some ways seen as supporting traditional gender roles as discrimination. Homosexuals may see, for example, laws involving homosexual marriage as discrimination. Groups such as Muslims advocating sharia may see a society not based on this as mistreatment of Muslims.

Reverse discrimination

Reverse discrimination occurs when members of a historically advantaged group are discriminated against based on a protected characteristic such as gender or race. This might include men who are given less favorable treatment at their jobs as compared to women because of their gender or whites who are discriminated against because of their race. While affirmative action programs are justified historically, they may inadvertently violate discrimination laws if they have a disparate impact on members of the majority group. Reverse discrimination might include the following scenarios:

• Promoting or hiring minorities regardless of the qualifications of male or white applicants or employees
• Hiring women because of their gender instead of equally qualified men
• Favoring older workers and refusing to hire people under age 40
• Admitting minority applicants only on the basis of race while rejecting majority applicants

See also

• Intersectionality
• Oppression Olympics
• Reverse racism