One thing you have to also remember not all jobs are covered. For instance certain religious groups are exempt and small businesses under a certain amount of employees. This is why Chinese restuarants can hire only Chinese people. They don’t have enough employees to cover them in the act. And it makes no sense for a church to be forced to employee an athiest.
When I worked at a Catholic Hospital in high school, we started our weekly meetings with a prayer. I’m sure that is some kind of exemption.
While it would be inadvisable to put a prohibition on obese persons in an ad, there are often ways to word things to get around discrimination laws. Must be able to demonstrate ability to climb step ladders up to 16 feet is a good one, for instance. Must be able to safely enter and exit crawl space holes, is another.
Obese doesn’t = weak or clumsy. There’s a lot of strong obese people who would have no problem with 16 foot ladders and (assuming you’re not Godzilla sized) standard exit entry hatches.
If the issue is the cost of benefits, couldn’t the company charge more for insurance for people over a certain BMI? The last company I worked for that had benefits charged an extra $600/year to smokers. Would that be a legal way to deal with the situation?
Just to reiterate, it would be bad PR but it is in NO WAY illegal under Federal law and the laws of 49 states to state “slim persons only” in a job ad. Unless you fall under the ADA (your obesity substantially limits one or more major life activities)“Fat” is not a protected class, barring specific local city or county laws, of which, to my knowledge, there are only a small handful.
I’m not sure an exception would be needed here. The First Amendment, as regards religion, applies to government institutions only. Starting meetings with a prayer is different from requiring all employees to be Catholic.
Yes, here too. I doubt there are any discrimination laws at all. Ads requiring an applicant to be “attractive” are common, along with age, gender etc. Photos are routinely required beforehand.
A post above regarding women of childbearing age made me think of one lady I knew, an assistant dean of a college at a major university here. She became quite angry when one of the college’s maids got pregnant – by her lawfully wedded husband – without permission. This assistant dean was a lady of much Western experience, too. I believe the maid was suitably apologetic and thus allowed to keep her job.