Comment by red_candle_wax
10 hours ago
Wait till the "where's the line" boosters learn groups like the Amish who have mostly drawn a line. They'll be clamoring for legal loopholes to steal the land from those luddites so that they can buid the future on it!
So what do you do if your company hires an engineer and on the first day they say "I am Amish and cannot touch a computer"? Give them a religions exemption? What then? Are you obligated to pay their salary for the rest of their life?
You're missing a major component of the law:
> Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 requires employers to make reasonable accommodations for an applicant or employee whose sincerely held religious belief, practice, or observance conflicts with a work requirement, *unless providing the accommodation would create an undue hardship for the employer.*
If using a computer is necessary for the job, then the religious exemption would create undue hardship. Presumably for this Kentucky guy's job he can get his work done without AI and the university isn't suffering for it.
So all a company has to do is say "AI is necessary for the job" and the exemption no longer applies. Then why are we even having this discussion?
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You filter out any such applicant with digital applications for digital postings requiring proficiency with digital tools.
Any such potential candidate passing these is then given an interview in which technical questions relevant to the question are asked.
I'm really not sure how you imagine a luddite makes it all the way to their first day to drop some weird "oh, I can't actually do this job btw" bomb.
Even supposing they do, they have a job description requiring that they perform certain tasks that are within the realm of reasonable expectations as set by the government.
Someone in a wheelchair isn't going to get hired for any "must be able to regularly lift and move weights over 50 pounds" job just because of equal employment opportunity as they can't perform the legally allowed requirements.
And what if someone decides to convert after starting the job?
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How would this person who hasn’t touched a computer for years, end up in the candidate pool for computer-using engineers?
Who says they haven't touched a computer for years? There's no requirement for your beliefs to be consistent. Otherwise there wouldn't be a single religious person left in the world. You can interview on a computer and reveal your religious preferences on the first day of the job.
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There are a lot of weird ways interviews are done. I wouldn't be surprised if someone's interview process didn't screen for is someone even an engineer.
Though nothing about the Amish prohibits being a computer using engineer. Their rejection of technology is a lot more nuanced.
Because he was hired when the company still used typewriters.
Read up on EEOC regulation and you'll see your example won't fly. Exceptions must be reasonable and not cause undue hardship on the employer.
"An accommodation may cause undue hardship if it is costly, compromises workplace safety, decreases workplace efficiency, infringes on the rights of other employees, or requires other employees to unwillingly do more than their share of potentially hazardous or burdensome work." - https://www.eeoc.gov/religious-discrimination
Otherwise we would all be joining a religion which require 360 days of religious festivities each year.