My guess is that this one might be thought of, at worst, as violating the letter of the statute without violating its spirit -- at best it wouldn't do either.

 

The definition of age, of course, in the statute, is 40 years old or older.  So discrimination based on age is discirimination based on someone's being 40 years old or older.  It's the "or older" part that stands out to me, because the ADEA is designed to prevent discimination against those who are older in favor of those who are younger.  It is emphatically not a ban on discrimination on age in general.  Thus that case (whose name now slips my mind) where the 60-year-old woman was discriminated against in favor of a 42-year-old woman for the same job, even though both were theoretically in the same protected class (over 40), violated the statute -- but I don't think that the same would have been true if the discrrimination had been inverted.

 

Ken



	-----Original Message----- 

	From: Academy of Legal Studies in Business (ALSB) Talk on behalf of deb ballam 

	Sent: Tue 12/30/2003 11:12 AM 

	To: [log in to unmask] 

	Cc: 

	Subject: age discrimination question

	

	



	Hi, everyone. I hope everyone is doing well.

	

	A marketing colleague asked me about the legality of companies whose main

	customer base is baby boomers giving preference in hiring to those who are

	50 or older.

	

	Does anyone know of any age discrimination cases where workers 50 and over

	were given preference over those younger than 50?  It seems like this would

	constitute age discrimination against those aged 40-49 in violation of the

	ADEA in just the same way as would a preference for those aged 40-49 over

	those 50 and older.

	

	Thanks.

	

	Deb