Can English accent be part of discrimination? Suppose, a tech company in the USA uses AI software to test if a candidate has a certain accent (e.g. standard American accent, Southern British accent, etc.). The candidate has to attain a certain score to pass the test irrespective of race, ethnicity, nationality, etc. Would that be considered discrimination? Would that be a punishable offense?
The Dept. of Labor makes it easy for you: as they say, it is illegal discrimination. The U.S. Department of Labor (DOL), Civil Rights Center (CRC), is charged with enforcing Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, 42 U.S.C § 2000e-16, which prohibits employment discrimination based on race, color, religion, sex, and national origin, as it applies to employees and applicants for employment at DOL. National origin discrimination can involve treating applicants for employment or employees of DOL unfavorably because of their actual or perceived place of birth, country of origin, ancestry, native language, accent, or because they are perceived as looking or sounding &quot;foreign.&quot;... National origin discrimination can also include disparate treatment because of a person's accent
You cannot sell the same goods or services at different price points based on gender in the EU Council directive 2004/113/EC required members to implement local laws to &quot;prohibit discrimination based on sex in the access to and supply of goods and services&quot; and it &quot;should apply to both direct discrimination and indirect discrimination.&quot; The example you cite would appear to be both direct (tickets) and indirect (skirts) discrimination.
From what I can determine, there has not been a legal challenge to the practice that reached a high enough level to get on my radar, so it's not clearly prohibited or allowed. Turning to the relevant federal regulations, the implementation of the Fair Housing Act, the law hinges in part on an Aggrieved person includes any person who— (a) Claims to have been injured by a discriminatory housing practice; or (b) Believes that such person will be injured by a discriminatory housing practice that is about to occur. In order to sue a university because they offer sex-separated halls, floors or rooms, a plaintiff would have to show that they have been harmed by being given such a choice. Reading the prohibitions in §100.50, there is no obvious "Discriminat[ion] in the terms, conditions or privileges of sale or rental of a dwelling, or in the provision of services or facilities", and it does not "otherwise makes unavailable or denies dwellings". Cases like McLaurin v. Oklahoma State Regents, 339 U.S. 637 (a case putting an end to the "separate but equal" doctrine) include reference to the fact that appellant was harmed ("The restrictions imposed upon appellant impair and inhibit his ability to study, to engage in discussions and exchange views with other students, and, in general, to learn his profession"). Analogously, the relatively rare black-only residences of UC Davis and Cal State LA might be targeted in a discrimination suit, if plaintiffs can make the required legal argument that there is harm.
I haven't found a recent case like this where it constitutes evidence. Military members didn't have an express right to remain silent until somewhere in the 1950s, so one chances are there might be cases prior to that point. The present right is codified in 10 U.S.C. 831, which is Article 31 of the UCMJ. That said, there is certainly a well documented adverse inference effect. While jurors aren't supposed to take the silence into account (e.g. when a defendant elects not to testify or exercises a right against self-incrimination), it's a difficult thing to do, practically speaking.
In the United States, what is &quot;fair&quot; and &quot;unfair&quot; is typically not a legal question, in large part because it is so subjective. There are some exceptions -- such as in copyright law or competition law -- but in the discrimination context, we use the lawful/unlawful distinction. Bequeathing a house to your child solely because he is your child, for instance, is not fair but it is lawful. The same is true for giving more to your oldest child simply for being the oldest, or cutting a black relative out of your will: not fair, but lawful. Assuming there's a valid will, a court will rarely make a serious inquiry into the fairness of the decedent's discrimination among beneficiaries. The same types of issues come up in contexts that are more routine subjects of discrimination law. In employment, for instance, you might have two employees: a lazy white salesman who's been around for 20 years and a new black woman who does an excellent job answering the phones. If you only have enough money to give one raise, giving it to the black woman is both fair and lawful. Giving it to the white guy because he's been around longer is probably not fair but still lawful, while giving it to him strictly because he's white is probably neither fair nor lawful. The inutility of the fair/unfair distinction can become especially clear in the affirmative-action context, where the question of fairness remains hotly debated. If an employer has two equally qualified candidates, would it be fair to require him to choose a black applicant over a white applicant as a means of redressing centuries of discrimination against blacks? What if the black applicant is only marginally less qualified? What if the black applicant is far less qualified? There are many who think each of these would be fair, and there are many who think none of them would be. In the end, then, the courts tend only to ask whether discrimination is lawful, which can usually be resolved by applying the facts to the law, leaving questions about what is fair to lawmakers and commentators.
Let's assume the college receives some amount of federal funding, because quite a lot of them do. Let's also assume that Superman is considered to be a natural person for legal purposes—that is, he has all the rights a human would—so that his case isn't going to get dismissed on that ground. Superman's best bet would be to allege race discrimination under Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 (42 U.S. Code § 2000d) That law states: No person in the United States shall, on the ground of race, color, or national origin, be excluded from participation in, be denied the benefits of, or be subjected to discrimination under any program or activity receiving Federal financial assistance. For obvious reasons, there's no precedent on whether a non-homo sapiens species of intelligent humanoid aliens is a &quot;race&quot; for civil rights purposes. However it seems like a reasonable argument could be made that it would be. For one thing, in terms of plain meaning, the term is extremely common to describe such beings (1.7 million+ hits on a web search for &quot;alien races&quot;—as one relevant example, Wikipedia has a List of alien races in Marvel Comics), and it would be a straightforward way to incorporate them into existing anti-discrimination law. Since all Kryptonians gain superpowers on earth, discriminating against him on the basis of his superior abilities would be, in effect, discrimination due to his Kryptonian race. A less compelling, but still plausible, argument might be that this is national origin discrimination under the same law (based on the fact that they're discriminating based on his being from Krypton).
The legal answer is that it depends on where in the world you are. In the US, &quot;sexual harassment&quot; is legally subsumed under laws against illegal discrimination, which can exist at the federal level and the state level. You cannot discriminate on the basis of race for employment, housing, public accomodations and so on. You cannot discriminate on the basis of sex in employment. However, you are not employing anyone, so that law does not apply to you. In general, being a customer or potential customer, or a person in possession of a phone, is not a federally-regulated activity. The First Amendment to the US Constitution protects your right to expression, regardless of whether they may be found to be offensive. It is legal in the US to be rude.
In the US at least, discrimination is legal (and sometimes even required) unless it is discrimination against specific, protected characteristics, and even then it is sometimes allowable if it is "necessary". Income, whether of an individual or that individual's family, is not in any list of protected characteristics. As such, discrimination upon it is fully legal.