According to this report in today’s St. Louis Post Dispatch, “[d]isabled employees in Missouri and six other states should not get preferential treatment over more-qualified candidates seeking a job, a federal appeals court said Wednesday.”
The 8th Circuit Court of Appeals, based in St. Louis, ruled that Wal-Mart was justified in hiring the most qualified person for a “router” position instead of a less-qualified Wal-Mart employee who had been injured in another position. What I find interesting, however, is not this particular decision but the judges’ attitude about affirmative action that was revealed in passing:
In Wednesday’s ruling, Judge William Jay Riley, writing for himself, Judge Roger L. Wollman and Senior Judge C. Arlen Beam said “the ADA [Americans With Disabilities Act] is not an affirmative action statute,” and doesn’t require employers to violate their non-discrimination policy to reassign a disabled worker.
“Huber was treated exactly as all other candidates were treated for the Wal-Mart job opening, no worse and no better,” Riley wrote.
These judges recognize that “affirmative action,” at least as it is usually applied, does require employers and others to violate any non-discrimination policy they may have.
If enough signatures can be gathered to put the Missouri Civil Rights Initiative on the ballot in November 2008, perhaps the citizens of Missouri can eliminate those affirmative action violations of equal treatment.
