BHR 3565, Employment Law 1 Course Learning Outcomes for Unit VII Upon completion of this unit, students should be able to: 6. Identify and explain government regulations regarding national origin discrimination, age discrimination, and disability discrimination. 6.1 Identify the elements of age discrimination. 6.2 Describe what employers can do to encourage older workers to retire without committing age discrimination. 6.3 Evaluate what constitutes a disability under the Americans with Disabilities Act and how such a disability impacts the employment relationship. 6.4 Assess what employers must do to provide reasonable accommodation to employees with disabilities. Reading Assignment Chapter 16: Age Discrimination Chapter 17: Disability Discrimination Unit Lesson Federal laws are usually enacted to address a specific issue that exists rather than to address an issue that is expected to develop. Title VII of the Civil Rights Act was intended to address specific kinds of discrimination in employment that had been occurring when the Civil Rights Act was approved by Congress. However, Title VII does not address every kind of discrimination in employment and especially discrimination in employment that had not been identified at the time as being an issue. We have already seen that Title VII has been amended to expand the prohibition against discrimination in employment to issues which were later recognized to be issues that needed to be addressed. For instance, the Pregnancy Discrimination Act in 1978 was actually an amendment to Title VII to extend the prohibition against discrimination on the basis of gender to include pregnancy as a class protected from discrimination in employment. Another of the issues involving discrimination in employment that was recognized as an issue that needed to be addressed after the Civil Rights Act was enacted is the issue of age discrimination. The primary instance of discrimination based on age occurred when employers terminated older employees and replaced them with younger employees in an effort to improve labor efficiency and/or reduce labor costs. Until the Age Discrimination in Employment Act in 1967 (ADEA), terminating older employees was a business decision – there was no organized effort to discriminate against older employees. However, the results of employers’ efforts to improve efficiency and reduce costs by terminating older workers had negative impacts on older workers, and to protect older workers from what was considered to be discriminatory treatment, Congress enacted the ADEA. Under the ADEA, employees have to prove that they were qualified for a job, that they were terminated from that job, that they were over the age of forty (the arbitrary age that the ADEA specifies to define older employees), and that they were replaced by a younger worker or that in some other manner they were discriminated against because of their age (Mora ...

1. BHR 3565, Employment Law 1
Course Learning Outcomes for Unit VII
Upon completion of this unit, students should be able to:
6. Identify and explain government regulations regarding
national origin discrimination, age
discrimination, and disability discrimination.
6.1 Identify the elements of age discrimination.
6.2 Describe what employers can do to encourage older workers
to retire without committing age
discrimination.
6.3 Evaluate what constitutes a disability under the Americans
with Disabilities Act and how such a
disability impacts the employment relationship.
6.4 Assess what employers must do to provide reasonable
accommodation to employees with
disabilities.
Reading Assignment
Chapter 16:
Age Discrimination

2. Chapter 17:
Disability Discrimination
Unit Lesson
Federal laws are usually enacted to address a specific issue that
exists rather than to address an issue that is
expected to develop. Title VII of the Civil Rights Act was
intended to address specific kinds of discrimination in
employment that had been occurring when the Civil Rights Act
was approved by Congress. However, Title VII
does not address every kind of discrimination in employment
and especially discrimination in employment that
had not been identified at the time as being an issue. We have
already seen that Title VII has been amended
to expand the prohibition against discrimination in employment
to issues which were later recognized to be
issues that needed to be addressed. For instance, the Pregnancy
Discrimination Act in 1978 was actually an
amendment to Title VII to extend the prohibition against
discrimination on the basis of gender to include
pregnancy as a class protected from discrimination in
employment.
Another of the issues involving discrimination in employment
that was recognized as an issue that needed to
be addressed after the Civil Rights Act was enacted is the issue
of age discrimination. The primary instance
of discrimination based on age occurred when employers
terminated older employees and replaced them with
younger employees in an effort to improve labor efficiency
and/or reduce labor costs. Until the Age
Discrimination in Employment Act in 1967 (ADEA),
terminating older employees was a business decision –

3. there was no organized effort to discriminate against older
employees. However, the results of employers’
efforts to improve efficiency and reduce costs by terminating
older workers had negative impacts on older
workers, and to protect older workers from what was considered
to be discriminatory treatment, Congress
enacted the ADEA. Under the ADEA, employees have to prove
that they were qualified for a job, that they
were terminated from that job, that they were over the age of
forty (the arbitrary age that the ADEA specifies
to define older employees), and that they were replaced by a
younger worker or that in some other manner
they were discriminated against because of their age (Moran,
2014).
Of course, the strict application of the ADEA could cause
employers who were really trying to terminate
people who could no longer do the job and replace them with
someone who could do the job in a difficult
position. The ADEA could also put an employer in a position of
having to pay someone a large salary
because he or she had been employed with the employer for a
long time, when the job could be done by a
younger worker who demanded lower compensation. Some of
those difficulties still exist, and employers often
UNIT VII STUDY GUIDE
Discrimination in Employment on
the Basis of Age and Disability
BHR 3565, Employment Law 2

4. UNIT x STUDY GUIDE
Title
have to prove that they did not terminate an employee on the
basis of his or her age but rather because the
employee could no longer perform the job as required because
of physical or intellectual or training
deficiencies. As to situations when an employer simply wants to
reduce costs by terminating a highly paid
employee and replacing him or her with a younger and lower
paid employee, courts have shown a tendency
to allow termination of older employees strictly for economic
reasons (Moran, 2014).
Other issues for employers trying to avoid age discrimination
have also arisen. For instance, is a company
policy that requires employees to retire when they reach a
certain age the basis for a claim of discrimination
based on age? The answer generally is that mandatory
retirement ages are a form of age discrimination. As a
result of court decisions to that effect, some employers offered
older employees attractive retirement
packages in an effort to entice those workers into retiring. When
those tactics have been challenged in court
as another form of age discrimination, the courts have generally
found that the offer of such retirement
packages do not constitute age discrimination as long as the
employee actually has a choice of taking the
retirement package or continuing to work (Moran, 2014).
Another issue involving discrimination in employment not
addressed in the Civil Rights Act was the issue of
discrimination in employment on the basis of disability.

5. Initially, this was not considered to be an issue
because employers were understood to need employees who
could perform the functions of the jobs they
were hired to do, and employers understandably were not
interested in hiring people who suffered from
disabilities because those people were viewed as not being able
to perform the necessary job functions.
However, as the perception of the disabled changed and it
became better understood that a person with a
disability was often not completely disabled and could perform
certain job functions, the Americans with
Disabilities Act (ADA) was enacted in 1990, and among other
things, prohibited employers from discriminating
against those with disabilities (Moran, 2014).
While it seems fair that those with disabilities should not be
discriminated against, in practice sorting out what
duties the ADA requires of employers has not been easy. For
instance, what constitutes a disability has been,
and still is, a difficult question in some cases. There are some
conditions such as the loss of a limb or
blindness that are clearly disabilities, but other conditions such
as alcoholism or pregnancy or obesity are not
what are typically thought of as disabilities. However, courts
have said that alcoholism and pregnancy and
obesity and many other conditions that might not be thought off
as disabilities are disabilities under the ADA.
Additionally, once a condition is determined to be a disability,
does that mean employers have to hire
applicants no matter what their disability and how that
disability affects their ability to do the job? The answer
is no, employers can still refuse to hire someone whose
disability makes it difficult or impossible to perform
the functions of a particular job. For example, no employer
would be required to hire someone as a truck
driver if that person is blind. However, the ADA does require

6. that employers make reasonable
accommodations for applicants and employees with disabilities
so that they can participate in meaningful
work. However, what constitutes a reasonable accommodation is
not specifically spelled out in the ADA and
depends on the specific facts. For instance, an employer might
make as a reasonable accommodation to an
employee who must use a wheelchair, relocating that
employee’s workstation to an area that is easily
accessible by wheelchair, or an employer might have to install
voice recognition software for an employee
who uses a computer but who does not have use of his or her
hands. Of course, the accommodation that the
employer is required to make for an employee with a disability
is only required to be reasonable, so an
accommodation that might allow an employee with a disability
to do a certain job but that would cause an
undue hardship or expense on the employer is not required of
the employer (Moran, 2014).
Reference
Moran, J. J. (2014). Employment law: New challenges in the
business environment (6th ed.). Upper Saddle
River, NJ: Prentice Hall.
Learning Activities (Non-Graded)
Case Study
Please locate and read Case 17.5, Pam Huber v. Wal-Mart

7. Stores, Inc., found on page 413 of the textbook.
Once you have read and reviewed the case scenario, respond to
the following questions:
BHR 3565, Employment Law 3
UNIT x STUDY GUIDE
Title
1. Do you agree with the court’s decision?
2. Was it the intent of the ADA to require employers to give
preference to disabled workers or to treat
them equally?
3. Do you believe the decision in this case was ethical?
Your response should be a minimum of 700 words in length.
You are required to use at least your textbook as
source material for your response. All sources used, including
the textbook, must be referenced; paraphrased
and quoted material must have accompanying citations per APA
guidelines.
Non-graded Learning Activities are provided to aid students in
their course of study. You do not have to
submit them. If you have questions, contact your instructor for
further guidance and information.

8. Key Terms
1. Age discrimination
2. Disability
3. Disability discrimination
4. Disability harassment
5. Layoffs
6. Major life activity
7. Mandatory retirement age
8. Reasonable accommodation
9. Voluntary retirement packages
1. Gene Johnson, who worked for Cable Fixers, Inc. for 21
years, was terminated when he was 69 years old and was
replaced by a much younger man who Cable Fixers paid a
significantly lower salary than it was paying Gene. Gene’s only
evidence of age discrimination is an email from his manager
stating that he (the manager) understood how long Gene had
worked for Cable Fixers but that Gene was not doing as good a
job as he used to do. Is this enough to establish age
discrimination? What elements must Gene show to prove age
discrimination? Can Cable Fixers fire an older, higher salaried
employee and replace him with a younger lower paid employee?
Your response should be a minimum of 200 words in length.
2. In accordance with FAA regulations that require commercial
airline pilots to retire at age 60, Fast Airlines has a broader
policy that requires that all member of a flight crew – pilots,
co-pilots, and flight engineers – must retire at age 60. Richard
worked as a flight engineer for Fast Airlines for more than 25

9. years, and, when he approached the age of 60, he informed Fast
Airlines that he felt that he was as able as ever to perform the
duties of a flight engineer, that he had more experience as a
flight engineer than any other employee of Fast Airlines, and
that he wanted to work as a flight engineer beyond his 60th
birthday. Fast Airlines responded to Richard’s request by
agreeing that he was one of the airline’s most valuable
employees and that his performance evaluations confirmed that
he was as able as ever to perform the duties of flight engineer,
but that company policy required that he retire. Is this age
discrimination? Why, or why not? Could Fast Airline’s policy
be modified to avoid the issue of age discrimination? How?
Your response should be a minimum of 200 words in length.
3. Sidney worked for the post office as a letter carrier, but after
Sidney had hip surgery, he was no longer able to do the work of
a letter carrier that required extended periods of walking and
lifting of moderately heavy loads. After Sidney had exhausted
the sick leave that he was entitled to take, he asked to be
reassigned from letter carrier duty to light duty work in the post
office where he worked. The post office did assign Sidney to a
temporary light duty position, but after several weeks, the post
office notified Sidney that there was no permanent light duty
position for him. Sidney then requested that the post office
create a permanent light duty position for him, but the post
office refused that request, and Sidney accepted disability
retirement. Sidney then sued the post office for failing to
reasonably accommodate his disability. Is Sidney correct? What
does an employer have to do to provide reasonable
accommodation for an employee’s disability?
Your response should be a minimum of 200 words in length.
4. William worked for a utilities company, Power, Inc., in an
installation and maintenance position which sometimes required

10. that William use man-lift equipment and climb utility poles.
William was obese, and the utility company had safety
regulations that required that employees who worked in
William’s position not weigh more than the load limits of the
equipment that was regularly used in that position. William
weighed more than the safe load limits of the equipment used in
his position, so his supervisor made sure that the job
assignments given to William did not require him to use the
man lift equipment or to climb utility poles. As part of a regular
workers’ compensation insurance review, the insurance
company for Power, Inc. determined that William’s weight
presented an unreasonable risk of injury if he continued to work
in the installation and maintenance position, so William’s
supervisor advised William that he would have to lose weight in
order to continue being employed by Power, Inc. Although
William tried to lose weight, he was not able to lose enough to
satisfy the insurance company. William said his inability to lose
weight was due to the fact that he suffered from a lack of self-
confidence and that he had never been able to control his
weight. When William did not lose the weight necessary for him
to perform his duties safely as determined by the insurance
company, he was terminated. Did Power, Inc. improperly
discriminate against William on the basis of a disability?
Your response should be a minimum of 200 words in length.