Does California SB611 require Hollywood to hire more diverse talent? I was reading a news article in which it was mentioned that there is a new bill (SB-611) proposing which will encourage racial and LGBTQ diversity and inclusion in movies. I have read the summary of the bill but it was more related to taxation. I have two questions: Is this bill really forced Hollywood industries to hire more diverse talent (actors/actress) such as minority or LGBTQ communities. Is this bill have been passed as a Law ?
A bit of background: In California, current law already provides tax incentives to producers who agree to shoot their films in California, under certain conditions. One of those conditions is that their application describe any programs they have voluntarily adopted to increase the number of &quot;women and minorities&quot; in specific job classifications. SB 611 would broaden that requirement, requiring producers to describe any programs they have voluntarily adopted to increase the number of &quot;individuals from underserved communities&quot; in any job. No, the bill would not require anyone to hire diverse talent. It would only require producers who want to avoid paying taxes to describe how they try to increase hiring of people from underserved communities. If that plan is &quot;do nothing,&quot; the producer can say so and remain eligible for the credit. SB 611 is not law. It was passed by the Senate, but it needs to return to the Assembly and then be sent to the governor for a signature. It has been nearly a month since there has been any major movement on it, so it seems unlikely that the bill will become law this session.
This case was filed in federal court under diversity jurisdiction, meaning that it’s a lawsuit between citizens of different states. In most cases, diversity jurisdiction requires “complete” diversity: every plaintiff has to be a citizen of a different state than every defendant. If one of 12 plaintiffs is a Maryland resident and one of 15 defendants is also a Maryland resident, that tiny overlap means the entire lawsuit is kicked back to state court. In this case, the defendants are an Ohio fraternity, an Illinois resident, a Wyoming company, and a person whose residence is unclear. Defendant Smith might be a Wyoming resident, a Utah resident, or a Washington resident. The plaintiffs aren’t sure. However, as long as the plaintiffs aren’t residents of any of those states, there’s complete diversity of citizenship. It doesn’t matter whether Doe II is from Alaska or Florida, just that she isn’t from the same state as any defendant.
In the US, there are separate regulations pertaining to different forms of discrimination for employment, thus there is no one-size answer. For sex, 29 CFR 1604.7 states: A pre-employment inquiry may ask “Male........., Female.........”; or “Mr. Mrs. Miss,” provided that the inquiry is made in good faith for a nondiscriminatory purpose. Any pre-employment inquiry in connection with prospective employment which expresses directly or indirectly any limitation, specification, or discrimination as to sex shall be unlawful unless based upon a bona fide occupational qualification. Let us take it for granted that sex is not a bona fide occupational qualification for an academic position. Thus the question is lawful only if there is a legal underlying interest. Suppose the question were "As a man, would you be able to able to effectively empathize with your nursing students?": this does not serve a legally allowed purpose, and only serves to indirectly restate a sexually discriminatory premise. This University of New Hampshire guidelines pages summarizes the basic interview prohibitions succinctly. Notice that the language of the regulation is stated purely in terms of the existence of such an inquiry – it does not restrict such inquiries "as made by the CEO", or "as made by the hiring committee". It simply says that such an inquiry is not to exist. It is thus the university's obligation to assure that all administrators, faculty members, graduate students, undergraduates, staff members, and members of the general public who are allowed to participate in pre-hiring interviews know what kinds of questions are legal versus illegal.
Is it discrimination? Yes, because discrimination is a broad term that covers any situation where someone might reserve something under specific criteria. In this case, it sounds like the restaurant reserves tables for people who will be eating. If you'e only having coffee, they only allow you in a certain section. Unless you live in some city with a very strange law that prevents discrimination based on what you plan to order, there is nothing illegal about doing that. Discriminating based on your order is not a protected class by the federal government. If you're trying to claim that you were discriminated against based on race, you have to actually prove that happened somehow. Based on your summary of the situation, it doesn't sound like that is what happened. Simply being of another race does not automatically qualify it as racial discrimination. As an example, finding proof might involve asking or looking around to see if "tables are for people ordering food only" is an established restaurant policy that applies to everyone. If there's a sign up somewhere, then it's clear they were just following a policy.
In the United States, I would strongly expect that an accurate depiction of historical fact (even if uncomfortably graphic) would be protected under the First Ammendment. Otherwise, the government could functionally censor the worst parts of history (as being too awful to discuss or depict), which is exactly the kind of thing the First Amendment is designed to prevent. There are three important categories of speech that are not protected: (1) "fighting words" directed at a person intended to provoke a fight, (2) words that infict emotional distress such that it qualifies as a tort, and (3) speech that court finds to qualify as "obscenity". Of these three, your game probably will not qualify for the first, since it generally requires speech directed at a specific person or people. I also suspect (less confidently) that an emotional-distress tort would not succeed since your game is not directed at any particular living people. Even if the game caused emotional distress to someone, your public release of the game probably could not qualify as a tort against that specific player who happens to experience emotional distress. The Miller test is used to determine if a work is obscenity. Wikipeida summarizes its three parts, all of which must be satisfied to constitute obscenity: Whether "the average person, applying contemporary community standards", would find that the work, taken as a whole, appeals to the prurient interest, Whether the work depicts or describes, in a patently offensive way, sexual conduct or excretory functions specifically defined by applicable state law, Whether the work, taken as a whole, lacks serious literary, artistic, political, or scientific value. The first two are explicitly sexual in nature. I don't know if there is any similar prohibition against hyper-violence, but even if there were, as long as your game does not run afoul of the "lacks serious artistic value" condition, you will be on the safe side of the line. Note that none of this stops anyone from initiating legal action against you (which may cause headaches for you); it only stops those legal actions from succeededing.
There is a good answer at the Skeptics StackExchange here. Its three most relevant references are: 42 U.S.C. Chapter 21, especially Subchapter VI (applies only to employers with fifteen or more employees every day in at least 20 calendar weeks in a year) An example case, Wilson v. Southwest Airlines Co. 517 F. Supp. 292 (N.D. Tex. 1981) Katie Manley, The BFOQ Defense: Title VII’s Concession to Gender Discrimination, 16 Duke Journal of Gender Law &amp; Policy 169-210 (2009) Wilson v Southwest held that being attractive and female is not a Bona Fide Occupational Qualification (BFOQ) for being a flight attendant, even when the company marketed themselves using female sexuality: sex does not become a BFOQ merely because an employer chooses to exploit female sexuality as a marketing tool or to better ensure profitability Most scholars believe that the BFOQ exception would not apply to Hooters servers for the same reason. The job is serving food, and the sexualized nature of the service is just the manner in which they do the job, not a requirement of the primary job itself. Hooters has never had a discrimination suit go to trial, however has been sued and settled out of court multiple times. Employment discrimination based on gender has been allowed only in cases where the primary product being sold (not merely the manner of delivery of the primary product) requires a particular gender. One example would be sexual entertainment. This would include strip clubs, modelling agencies, Nevada brothels, etc. I'll say it one other way. Simply offering attractive female service as part of a business strategy is not enough to trigger a BFOQ exception. To allow a BFOQ defence based on an employer's desired manner or means of achieving its primary business purpose would render the statute inoperative, and the BFOQ exception would &quot;swallow the rule&quot; Phillips v. Martin Marietta 400 U.S. 542 (1971). (This paragraph taken from here.)
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
In fact, the immigration quotas do not discriminate. The described limit is that "No more than 7 percent of the visas may be issued to natives of any one independent country in a fiscal year; no more than 2 percent may issued to any one dependency of any independent country". All countries get the same upper limit. Additionally, anti-discrimination laws are subject matter specific: they exist because Congress passed a law that prohibits using race as a basis for employing a person (which Congress can do because of the Commerce Clause). Congress has not passed any such law pertaining to granting of visas. There is a path of reasoning that could lead to concluding that national quotas violate anti-discrimination laws, based on an "effects test" (disparate impact). It appears to be a fact that an applicant for a visa has a much higher probability of being denied a visa is their country of origin is China or India, as opposed to Sweden, which one could spin into a disparate impact argument. In order for this argument to become the law, there would have to be a case brought to the federal courts to the effect that national quotas are illegal, and as far as I know there has never been such a case. There are no provisions in anti-discrimination legislation that support a disparate impact doctrine in immigration, and pretty clear evidence that it was not congressionally intended since Title 8 Ch. 12 clearly calls for nation-based quotas. A final point: "national origin discrimination" is based on "an individual's, or his or her ancestor's, place of origin; or because an individual has the physical, cultural or linguistic characteristics of a national origin group". A Swedish citizen of "Chinese national origin" is subject to the Swedish quota, not the Chinese quota, thus the discrimination is based on country of citizenship, not national origin.