Essay On Reverse Discrimination

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Business Ethics Final Paper – Reverse Discrimination Reverse Discrimination is an issue that has come about in the work force today. “The law allows employers to discriminate among employees as long as the ground for discrimination are job-related, fair, and objective (242).” For example, “employers can promote a male employee over a female employee as long as the male is more qualified, the family has had an equal opportunity to qualify, and the standards for qualifications are fair and objective.” Although the law does provide equality between different employees, there are still some cases that rule that they are victims of reverse discrimination. This is shown in the case against firefighters and the City of New Haven.
Firefighters in New Haven, Connecticut believe that they have been discriminated against. In June of 2009, the United States Supreme court rule that the City of New Haven had indeed discriminated against this group of firefighters who were not qualified for promotions. During this exam, “twenty firefighters, nineteen white and one Hispanic,” were denied the promotions and believed that they were victims of reverse discrimination (242). This exam examined that white exam takers were the most qualified firefighters. By a 5-4 vote, the U.S Supreme court did agree that these firefighters were victims of reverse discrimination. As an ethical person in this case study, I would have set up this exam completely different than they did. The results in the late 2003 clearly show that how this test is set up is completely not ethical. During this time, 118 fire fighters took this test for “promotion to lieutenant and captain” and had to get at least a 70 percent or higher to pass. They said that individuals who had passed the test were qualified for the positions if available. The results showed that 33 percent of the twenty-seven blacks who took the test and 26 percent of the Hispanics who took the test had passed, compared to 60 percent of the whites who had passed. These results do not seem fair and do not seem ethical in anyway. I believe that they should have set up the test completely different. The New Haven Fire Department has the test structured to having 60 percent of the test being multiple choice and 40 percent of the exam being oral. The department had decided after six African Americans passed the lieutenant test and three passed the captains test that they should not use the test results. If I were part of that fire department I would have not had these test takers filling out what their race is, to avoid racial discrimination. They should still be tested by doing multiple choice and oral discussion, but should not have their discrimination have anything to do with their qualifications.
The ethical systems in this case seemed very wrong. I do not believe that they were clearly discriminating these people because of their skin tone and was not paying attention to the qualifications that these individuals had. Everyone should be treated equally no matter what the color of their skin is and no one should be discriminated like that especially in a business environment. I do believe that it was not right for these people to completely disregard an individuals test because of their race.
The ethical systems that these firefighters who were giving the exam was clearly ruled over by the Supreme Court. The Supreme Court had said that “unequal test results itself was not sufficient evidence that the test were biased” (243). I believe that the firefighters did the right thing by pushing to sue the City of New Haven and that they had any right in doing so. They took the proper action by taking it to court
The reverse discrimination in this case is clearly shown between the whites and Hispanics and African Americans. Although the Hispanic and African Americans believe that they were being discriminated against through this testing process and that they were not qualified enough, the whites believed that they
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