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Culture War Roundup for the week of February 26, 2024

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The main argument against repealing the Civil Rights Act is that if people have the option to discriminate against racial minorities in jobs, housing, and school admissions, they will do so. In order to know if this is true, we would need to look at a country that has a similar racial mix to America, but no anti-discrimination laws, then compare the life outcomes of Africans or other historically oppressed groups in America to their life outcomes in that country.

Can anyone think of such a country to use as a test case?

I recently found out that France does not have anti-discrimination laws, but also that they don't collect data on race, so it might not be possible to use them as a comparison.

France has laws against racial discrimination

https://www.legifrance.gouv.fr/codes/section_lc/LEGITEXT000006070719/LEGISCTA000006165298/

Discrimination as defined in articles 225-1 to 225-1-2, committed against a natural or legal person, is punishable by three years' imprisonment and a fine of 45,000 euros when it consists in:

1° Refusing to supply a good or service;

2° Obstructing the normal exercise of any economic activity;

3° Refusing to hire, punishing or dismissing a person;

4° to subordinate the supply of a good or service to a condition based on one of the elements referred to in article 225-1 or provided for in articles 225-1-1 or 225-1-2;

5° To make an offer of employment, a request for an internship or a period of training in a company subject to a condition based on one of the elements referred to in article 225-1 or provided for in articles 225-1-1 or 225-1-2;

6° To refuse to accept a person for one of the internships referred to in 2° of article L. 412-8 of the Social Security Code.

Where the discriminatory refusal referred to in 1° is committed in a place open to the public or with the aim of preventing access to it, the penalties are increased to five years' imprisonment and a fine of 75,000 euros.

Translated with DeepL.com (free version)

Interesting. But do they have doctrines that are equivalent to disparate impact or hostile workplace environment?

I don't really know. I don't think there is any disparate impact law, you'd have to prove the disparate impact is intentionnal and thus that it falls in the scope of the anti discrimination law.