Affirmative Action
FAQs
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What is Affirmative Action?
Answer: In employment law, affirmative action are the specific actions taken in advertising, recruitment, hiring, promotion, and other areas which are designed and taken for the purpose of eliminating the present effects of past discrimination.
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How does Equal Employment Opportunity differ from Affirmative Action?
Answer:
Equal Employment Opportunity is a system of employment practices within an employing organization under which individuals are not excluded from any participation, advancement, or benefits because of their race, color, religion, sex, national orgin or other factor which cannot lawfully be the basis for employment action. It is an employment system in which neither intentional or unintentional discrimination operates. The purpose of affirmative action is to achieve equal employment opportunity.
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What is Discrimination?
Answer:
In Equal Employment Opportunity Law, Discrimination is an act or acts, the effects of which are adverse to the employment opportunities of one or more individuals because of his, her, or their race, color, religion, sex or national origin or other factors which under particular laws may not be considered as a basis for employment actions. Unlawful discrimination generally may be either intentional or unintentional.
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What is the difference between Goals and Quotas?
Answer:
Goals are numerical projections an employer makes of the representation minorities, women and protected class members are likely to achieve in positions in which they have been underutilized, if the employer applies good faith efforts to assure that all aspects of the employer’s affirmative action plan are made to work.
In employment law, quotas, are court-ordered hiring and or promoting of specified number or ratios of minorities, women or protected class members in positions from which a court has found they have been excluded as a result of unlawful discrimination. Quotas are not the same as goals, they can only be imposed by a court of law.