Discrimination

Discriminating between people on the grounds of merit is generally lawful in Western democracies. Discrimination on other grounds generally is not. When unlawful discrimination takes place, it is often described as discrimination against a person or group of people.

Social theories such as Egalitarianism claim that social equality should prevail. In some societies, including most developed countries, each individual's civil rights include the right to be free from government sponsored social discrimination.

In contrast, conservative writer and law professor Matthias Storme has claimed that the freedom of discrimination in human societies is a fundamental human right, or more precisely, the basis of all fundamental freedoms and therefore the most fundamental freedom. Author Hans-Hermann Hoppe, in an essay about his book Democracy: The God That Failed, asserts that a natural social order is characterized by increased discrimination.

Unlawful discrimination can be characterised as direct or slightly less direct. Direct discrimination involves treating someone less favourably because of their possession of a legally protected attribute (e.g., sex, age, race, religion, family status, national origin, military status, disability), compared with someone without that attribute in the same circumstances. An example of direct discrimination would be not giving a woman a job because she is more likely to take maternity leave. Indirect discrimination involves setting a condition or requirement which a smaller proportion of those with the protected attribute are able to comply with, without reasonable justification. The case of Griggs v. Duke Power Company provides an example of indirect discrimination, where an aptitude test used in job applications was found "to disqualify Negroes at a substantially higher rate than white applicants".