College of Business Administration College of Business Administration
1) Can race be a bona fide occupational qualification? Why or why not?
2) Do you agree with the ruling of the Supreme Court in the Johnson Control Case? Why or Why not?
3) Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 prohibits discrimination in employment based on race, color, sex, religion, or national origin. Executive Orders 11246 and 11375 require employers with federal contracts to act affirmatively in hiring employees. What is the difference between not discriminating and acting affirmatively?
4) Johnson’s Control Incorporated based they policy not on intent to discriminate, but rather on its concern for the health of unborn children. Do you believe their justification for discrimination was acceptable? Why or why not?
5) We have seen that discrimination can be legal if the firm can prove it is a business necessity/ BFOQ. Should discrimination ever be legal? Why or why not?
Ursula Le Guin's The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas
6) Social Justice: Why did some of the citizens of Omelas realize that “… like the child, they are not free.”? Is that why they walked away?
7) Social Justice: Omelas is obliviously not a good society for intentionally and directly benefiting from the aguish of a small child. In a good society can there be any sort of imposed suffering that benefits the rest of society? If so, come up with examples and justify reasoning.
Wendy McElroy's What does Affirmative Action Affirm?
8) Affirmative Action can be damaging to the minorities it tries to protect. To fill a quota, a business promotes a person of color to a position that he or she is only marginally qualified. If that person fails it will be seen as confirmation of racial inadequacy. If that person succeeds on there own merit, it will be “assumed that they were coddled along by preferential policies.” Do you agree? If so, is the damage to society greater than a society without affirmative action?
9) Is this argument of compensatory justice for Affirmative Action valid? Consider the following statement: Compensatory Justice claims that anyone who causes injury to an innocent person should remedy the damage. Affirmative Action goes one step further and claims that descendants of the injured parties deserve compensation as well.
10) College campuses: Affirmative Action has been blamed for causing racial tension because white and Asian students feel that they are reversed discriminated against. If schools were to enroll students strictly on test scores, what price would society pay in the long run?
C.P. Dunn's Normative Defense for Affirmative Action
11) Employment Quota is defined as “establishing specific numbers or proportions as goals for minorities, women, and other excluded group to be hired.” Do you believe that this is a fair hiring practice?
12) Do you believe that standardized tests, such as the SAT and GMAT, are culturally biased? Should we keep using them as admission criteria for schools?
13) “It is foolish to expect equal results when we begin with grossly unequal starting points…” What do you think of this quote?
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