Thread: Obama Administration: You Must Hire The Stupid

Only a nutjob would complain about something so obviously beneficial and necessary to underprivileged minorities.

That doesn't seem to be accurately characterised when reading it. Take another look at it. It seems to address something quite limited and technical concerning the ADA:

. . . The letter, dated Nov. 17, points out that it is an “informal discussion of the noted issue” that does not constitute an official opinion of the commission. The letter clarified an earlier response to an inquiry as to whether requiring Tennessee students who are learning disabled to take “Gateway tests” or “end-of-course assessments” in order to receive a high school diploma would violate the Americans with Disabilities Act.

EEOC clarified its answer in light of the party's statement that students whose learning disabilities prevent them from obtaining high school diplomas will be unable to obtain jobs for which a diploma is a requirement. A qualification standard is job-related and consistent with business necessity under the ADA “if it accurately measures the ability to perform the job's essential functions (i.e. its fundamental duties),” EEOC explained.

“[I]f an employer adopts a high school diploma requirement for a job, and that requirement ‘screens out' an individual who is unable to graduate because of a learning disability that meets the ADA's definition of ‘disability,' the employer may not apply the standard unless it can demonstrate that the diploma requirement is job related and consistent with business necessity. The employer will not be able to make this showing, for example, if the functions in question can easily be performed by someone who does not have a diploma,” EEOC said. . . .

EEOC Says Requiring High School Diploma Must Be Job-Related to Hold Up Under ADA | BNA

First, it's nothing binding but an unofficial answer to a technical question, and it doesn't appear to be anything alarming but actually fair and reasonable under the interpretation. If a person is disabled within the meaning of the act and the nature of the covered disability prevents the person from getting a high school diploma (HSD) or GED, then an employer can't apply a HSD or GED requirement to such a person where it makes no difference to the disabled person's ability to do the job at issue. If it does, however, then they are allowed to not hire the person as a legitimate job necessity that's lacking for the applicant.

Let's say there is a mentally challenged person with supervised freedoms who doesn't have the full skills or other abilities to get an HSD or GED, but they can do a job bagging groceries at a local supermarket. If that supermarket requires all employees to have at least a HSD or GED, they cannot use that requirement to keep such a person from doing that bagging job 'just because it's the house rule to have one' so long as the protected person is able to do the job. If the person, however, is physically, mentally, emotionally and/or otherwise unable to do the bagging job, then the store can refuse to hire the person.

It does not have anything to do with treating high school dropouts as 'disabled' within the ADA or forcing unqualified dropouts to be hired for rocket science jobs, etc. If anything it creates jobs for those in the protected class who would be otherwise denied jobs they can perform.

Originally Posted by dblack

Only a nutjob would complain about something so obviously beneficial and necessary to underprivileged minorities.

From the OP's link:

I don't know of many employers who think twice about requiring a high school diploma. The EEOC letter "does not constitute an official opinion of the commission," but rather is an indication that at a date not too far in to the future the EEOC will take up this question and make a ruling on whether requiring all job applicants to have graduated from high school is a violation of the ADA.

Originally Posted by wooyarn

From the OP's link:

I don't know of many employers who think twice about requiring a high school diploma. The EEOC letter "does not constitute an official opinion of the commission," but rather is an indication that at a date not too far in to the future the EEOC will take up this question and make a ruling on whether requiring all job applicants to have graduated from high school is a violation of the ADA.

Just another "I hate everything that isn't me" thread

There's no chance of that IMO. The ADA is a statute, and it specifically defines "disability" as "a physical or mental impairment that substantially limits a major life activity."

. . . There are three parts to the ADA definition of disability. In order to be considered a person with a disability under the ADA, a person only has to meet one of the three parts.

*a physical or mental impairment that substantially limits one or more major life activities of such individual,
*a record of such an impairment, or
*being regarded as having such an impairment.
. . .

ADA Title I Who has rights?

It even specifically excludes things like substance abuse within that definition to exclude misuse of the law's intentions. It's meant to cover situations of people like Trig Palin with Down's Syndrome, not rewarding your local dope addict and/or shiftless dropout with protected status for their misconduct.

Originally Posted by O'Sullivan Bere

It even specifically excludes things like substance abuse within that definition to exclude misuse of the law's intentions. It's meant to cover situations of people like Trig Palin with Down's Syndrome, not rewarding your local dope addict and/or shiftless dropout with protected status for their misconduct.

I hope you are right... I fear you are wrong.

Either way, you have to admit... this type of thing scares the crap out of employers.

Originally Posted by tsquare

I hope you are right... I fear you are wrong.

Either way, you have to admit... this type of thing scares the crap out of employers.

This is a way so for southerner's to have an equal job opportunities. If being a high school dropout makes you a protected class then those southerners will get a major leg up.

state-graduation-rates.jpg

Originally Posted by tsquare

I hope you are right... I fear you are wrong.

Either way, you have to admit... this type of thing scares the crap out of employers.

It's shouldn't scare them. It's not a new law at all. In fact, it was signed into law by a Republican President and has long had bipartisan support and employers are very familiar with it. The ADA and the language at issue is certainly nothing Obama invented and can claim any credit for enacting.

In fact, he's been a hardass--rightly so--on people who wilfully drop out of high school, saying at his first address to Congress that “dropping out of high school is no longer an option. It’s not just quitting on yourself, it’s quitting on your country—and this country needs and values the talents of every American.”

Hechinger Report | What can we do about the dropout problem?

and going directly to the black community to address what he called 'the culture of low expectations' and specifically attacking low expectations on education:

Barack Obama's Speech on Father's Day - YouTube

(at 14:00 specifically about education)

and making it part of his focus:

President Obama Announces Steps to Reduce Dropout Rate and Prepare Students for College and Careers | The White House

He should be doing that, as should every POTUS and politician. We need higher educational expectations in this globalised competitive world, not lower ones.

Given it's election time, this is, however, one of the multitude of things that some wiseguy can distort for false alarm talking points. I didn't see the OP article doing that, but someone might. If that happens, then it would be very wrong IMO, not just because it would be deceptive but because who gets thrown under the bus with it...the very kinds of disabled people needing that protection who deserve it and can't defend themselves fairly from becoming the chum for the voter fishing expedition.

When I see that actual application, I'm thinking of my cousin Jen in NY and the example I used is based on her experience. She's mentally challenged. When she was born she got tangled and strangled in the birth process by her umbilical cord and it cut off enough oxygen that it made her 'slow', so to speak, for the rest of her life. She has about an upper primary school level of academic ability and never had the full range of IQ to get a HSD or GED. She has supervised freedom, though, given her abilities and based upon those abilities and disabilities.

She has worked as a bagger for years in a store and she's perfectly capable of doing that. She likes it, it's good for her self-esteem and well being given its useful aspects of interaction and labour, it puts some money in her pocket and saves her family money in the process as she earns spending money, etc. Obviously no one will employ her nor does the ADA require her to be employed for any job she's not capable of handling. But if her store had a general policy of requiring HSDs or GEDs no matter the job, then she couldn't do the job even though she can and it makes no difference that she doesn't have the HSD or GED to do it.

So is the premise of the OP that being fair to those with disabilities would never occur under a Republican administration? That they are so anti-elitist they are actually elitists who make up absurd job requirements so they can discriminate against the handicapped?

Originally Posted by tsquare

That's right people... clearly an effort to protect his core voting block:



That's right those too stupid to finish high school (or get a GED) will now be a 'protected class' under the ADA

Of course ever mindful to be efficient with his largesse, this will also open whole new avenues for tort lawyers and union organizers... big Obama backers all...

If any of you are still wondering why I said Obama is piss poor for business and is killing jobs... here is yet another example.


Can employers require job applicants to have a high school diploma? - Rock The Schoolhouse's blog - Boston.com

More phoney outrage, bullshit issue crap that shows the total desperation and hypocrisy of the OP and others on the right.

First they say Obama is an elitist, but now they say he's trying to protect the stupid.

So which one is it?

You guys don't have a leg to stand on with your flip-flopping in every aspect of your anti-Obama criticism.

One day he's an authoritarian and the next he's Jimmy Carter.

You guys can't seem to make up your mind.

This is a total non-story. There's nothing partisan about it.

Some kids with special needs don't have what it takes to do an overall high school diploma covering all of the subjects they were supposed to have taken.

But on the other hand, they tend to find themselves in a very specific kind of work that they can actually do and be productive at. Reminds me of a couple of the shop kids I knew at high school. They clearly were missing a few of the pieces that the rest of us have, but their gifts at what they knew and liked doing served them well.

So be it. As long as their specific job skill set is on the level, you can't discriminate them for lacking the diploma.

Sounds fair to any reasonable person.

It also sounds like a decision likely made by a career bureaucrat who has been in that position for a number of different administrations. There are 2.8 million federal government employees. It is amazing that Obama has the energy and the desire to micromanage them all.

Given the quality of a high school education these days, there isn't much, if any difference between a dropout and a graduate.

Originally Posted by tsquare

I hope you are right... I fear you are wrong.

Either way, you have to admit... this type of thing scares the crap out of employers.

Why should it? This doesn't force an employer to hire them it just says they can't be summarily dismissed from consideration and if they have 2 people for a job they can still hire the candidate with the qualifications. Plenty of people rise up the ranks without qualifications because they are good at what they do regardless of not being particularly academic.

Originally Posted by Formaldehyde

It also sounds like a decision likely made by a career bureaucrat who has been in that position for a number of different administrations. There are 2.8 million federal government employees. It is amazing that Obama has the energy and the desire to micromanage them all.

He's not smart enough to manage his own job let alone anyone else.