[joelegner]

In my field communicating with other English-speaking people is probably 80% of the job. Someone who cannot read and write clear English prose will not be successful. Serious question: if I eliminate someone from contention because they struggle to read, write, and speak English, is that “discrimination”?

[AHOHA]

No one said anything about the ability to communicate, but the discrimination against candidates with some disability like dyslexia, it is YOUR job as an employer to provide the proper tool -either during the interview process or even after hiring- to make sure the work isn’t affected, and having a proper process to address it. Same goes with accent, it isn’t about the ability to communicate but rather the accent or linguistics bias either by not hiring these candidates, or excluding them later from meetings, presentations, etc., or eliminating any future career growth.

Obviously those discriminations are illegal so it goes passive most of the times, by continuous interruption during meetings or intentionally asked to repeat or elaborate themselves, among other.

It’s not about communication abilities as this is usually the covert passive response for such discriminatory behaviors, a lot of these candidates can speak “better” in terms of clarity than people with Australian accent for example, it’s just another episode of “I’m better than you”, you can read more about that in here:

https://www.bbc.com/worklife/article/20210528-the-pervasive-...

https://www.forbes.com/sites/janicegassam/2022/11/18/accent-...

https://exceptionalindividuals.com/about-us/blog/what-is-dys...

[Andrew_nenakhov]

> it is YOUR job as an employer to provide the proper tool

I love it when people from internet forums are telling me what my job is.

You know, your way of thinking will eventually lead to understanding that interviewing is inherently discriminatory against everyone but the best candidate, and thus must be abolished. This will lead to a creation of some kind of government agency that you'll ask for a worker and it'll appoint someone who would be considered as acceptable by some clerk. You wouldn't have the freedom to refuse to hire the appointee and would be obliged to pay him.

[sunderw]

> You know, your way of thinking will eventually lead to understanding that interviewing is inherently discriminatory against everyone but the best candidate

That's not discrimination. The problem is when you assume someone isn't the best candidate because of (pick (religion, origin, language, disability, ...)) but you don't know that.

A lot of people have used your way of thinking to justify discrimination. "Obviously foreign people are less educated. I'm just looking for the best candidate so I should not interview someone with a foreign name". How can you be sure that _you_ are not discriminating ?

> I love it when people from internet forums are telling me what my job is.

So you don't agree that your job is to hire the best person without discrimination ? Or you don't agree that giving people the proper tools allow them to be the best version of themselves ?

[Andrew_nenakhov]

> The problem is when you assume someone isn't the best candidate because of (pick (religion, origin, language, disability, ...)) but you don't know that.

I assume that someone who can't throw up a few lines of text about himself is not worth even considering for an interview for a job that ultimately requires producing text, in a form of computer code, documentation and communication with co-workers. Yes, I'm pretty sure I'm discriminating against mentally handicapped and illiterate people. That's the intent.

[dexterdog]

It is and it's perfectly fine to do as long as you don't leave the wrong kind of paper trail.

[pjmlp]

Depends on how good their lawyer happens to be, swording arguments with the employment law for people with disabilities.

https://www.dol.gov/agencies/odep/publications/fact-sheets/e...

[Arch485]

Yes, by definition. Whether or not it's legal depends on where you live, and whether or not it's ethical depends on who you ask.