Anti-Preference in Employment Law: A Preliminary Analysis

Abstract

There are bans on a ban on preferences based on these categories to the already existing ban on discrimination. Characterized as being anti-affirmative action, these proposals have been debated in terms of their constitutionality and desirability. This Article will analyze these proposals and basic legal questions. This Article finds that such statutes could change present law on employment and educational selection in unforeseen ways. Many now-current practices as diverse as favoring one's lover, hiring co-ethnics for a small ethnic firm, and admitting legacies into college could be illegal. It concludes that the proposals make an unstated and erroneous assumption that anti-preference rules are anti-affirmative action practices, which they often are not, and that anti-preference and anti-affirmative action equals a merit selection system, which it does not.