Search results

Appearance is part of a person's non-verbal communication, and looks are often associated with the perceived ‘attractiveness’ of individuals for hiring practices in the workplace. As such, physical attractiveness can be a ‘prized possession’ when it comes to leaving a positive impression on managers who are interviewing candidates. In the twenty-first century environment, our society seems to be more obsessed with physical appearance than ever before because society has conditioned us to associate beauty with other favourable characteristics. Of course, such appearance norms, regarding attractiveness, ‘good looks’ and beauty are linked to years of socialisation in culture, cultural norms and materialistic personality standards.

In a business context, managers and employers often make hiring decisions based on the appearance and attractiveness of the job applicants since outward appearance seems to play a significant role in which candidates eventually might get the job. Physically attractive job applicants and candidates tend to benefit from the unearned privilege, which often comes at a cost to others who are equally qualified. Preferring employees who are deemed to be attractive, and consequently discriminating against those who are perceived as unattractive, can present legal and ethical challenges for employers and managers. In this chapter, we provide a discussion and reflection of appearance-based hiring practices in the United States with relevant legal, ethical and practical implications for employers, human resources professionals and managers. We focus on ‘lookism’ or appearance discrimination, which is discrimination in favour of people who are physically attractive. As such, we examine federal, state and local laws regarding appearance discrimination in the American workplace. We also offer sustainable policy recommendations for employers, HR professionals and managers on how they can be fair to all candidates in order to hire, promote and retain the most qualified professionals in their departments and organisations.

Influenced by postmodern and poststructuralist perspectives, cultural studies and humanities researchers have critiqued ways that old age plays out in lived realities – including effects of ageism and power loss in both private and public spheres. Generally, older people are perceived negatively and as less powerful than younger people. Age tends to trump most other social identity dimensions in negative ways so that aging is an eventuality that many people the world over dread or fear.

In recent years, age has been treated as a social, political and economic issue that draws from anxiety and fear associated with the advancing life course. Some nations outlaw age discrimination in the workplace, but others do not. So, while improved sanitation, diet and health care means that many people live longer, they still face enduring negative stereotypes about aging processes. Chapter 8 sharpens the focus on social identity marked by age and dimensions that overlap with age – in the larger social milieu and in organizational contexts. Several theoretical ties bind this chapter’s exploration of age and aging, including critical/cultural studies, feminism, critical gerontology, and postmodern and poststructuralist perspectives. To explore research on aging and identity, this chapter is divided into subthemes: sociocultural perspectives on and theorizing about aging, age categories and birth cohorts, aging effects for organizations, aging effects for employees, and age with other social identity intersectionalities.

The tremendous relevance of societal discrimination to special education of the learning disabled cannot be gainsaid. Mistreatment of disabled children in public and private educational institutions is a bad reflection on the moral and egalitarian values of the society at large. “Many students, regardless of race, who are deemed eligible to receive special education services [mandated by federal laws] are unnecessarily isolated, stigmatized, and confronted with fear and prejudice” (Losen & Welner, 2001, p. 407). According to the U.S. Congress, “poor African-American children are 2.3 times more likely to be identified by their teacher as having mental retardation than their white counterpart” (20 U.S.C. §1400 (8)(c) Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA)). Congress has also found that a highly disproportionate number of elementary and secondary special education students are African-Americans (IDEA §1400 (8)(D)) and their social disadvantage stems from “lack of opportunities in training and educational programs, undergirded by the practices in the private sector that impede their full participation in the mainstream society” (IDEA §1400 (10)).

The National Labor Relations Act (NLRA) creates rights for covered employees, defines conduct that violates those rights, and deems that conduct an unfair labor practice. But while given broad remedial powers under the Act, the Board's options were curtailed by the Supreme Court's limit on the use of deterrence as an express remedial justification. The Board was left with a strongly make-whole, i.e., ex-post, focus to undo the consequences of a violation.

Put differently, the current NLRA remedies reflect a pay-or-play philosophy. The goal is restoration after the fact, using ex-post remedies to give parties the benefit or status quo that they expected. An actor willing to pay may use a cost–benefit analysis and strategically choose to violate the Act, accepting the make-whole remedies later. But the Act created ex-ante statutory rights, not agreed-upon contractual terms. By statutory enactment, employees are given something of value deemed worthy of protection. Assigning value to compliance with the law in the first instance not only prevents sometimes irreparable harm but also reaffirms the inherent value of the right itself.

The impact of the Board's limited remedies is therefore a broad value-driven one. Without ex-ante deterrence, the available ex-post make-whole remedial options make a normative statement about individuals' rights under the Act: those rights may not be inherently worth enough to incentivize legal compliance. The make-whole focus can imply that financial compensation for the portion of harm that can be calculated and “undoing” some nonfinancial effects is sufficient. There is little drive to deter infringement before the fact. By examining the remedial philosophy behind contrasting approaches in the common law of torts and contract, this Article asserts that the current remedial strictures and framework undermine both the Act and the worth of its rights in the eyes of the public and the employees who hold them.