# Can you claim discrimination over political affiliation? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [December 2, 2004, 7:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-you-claim-discrimination-over-political-affiliation/277750 "2004-12-02T19:55:44Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 13\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![RevCo](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/9fc348/32.png) [@RevCo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RevCo)\ **Post date:** [December 2, 2004, 7:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-you-claim-discrimination-over-political-affiliation/277750/1 "2004-12-02T19:55:44Z")
Hello - just a note to say that while this post has “political” in the subject, I want to keep it in GQ, so please no snipes - I’ll try to be as broad as possible. That said - has anyone ever sued their employer for wrongful termination over political affiliation? That is, claimed wrongful termination because you are a democrat working with a bunch of republicans or vice versa? Do you have the right as a republican to be considered for employment fairly by the DNC or the reverse? Second, some fields seem to attract more of “x” political party than “y” political party, even when there doesn’t seem to be a strong correlation. Where there doesn’t seem to be a correlation (ie: 90% of the Screen Actors Guild voted for such and such a candidate, or 90% of Beer Vendors voted for such and such) could one and a group of other failed actors or beer vendors file a class action suit claiming discrimination? I’m just asking because (pulling a number out of thin air) it seems that 40% of the country is one party, 40% another, and the rest independent – I find it odd that there haven’t been lawsuits already… ---
**Author:** ![Giles](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/giles/32/60_2.png) [@Giles](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Giles)\ **Post date:** [December 2, 2004, 8:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-you-claim-discrimination-over-political-affiliation/277750/2 "2004-12-02T20:02:39Z")
Any legal question depends on jurisdiction. In Australia, discrimination on political grounds is illegal: > [@](#): > > Direct discrimination is treating one person less favourably than another because of particular attributes, such as race, colour, sex, sexual preference, age, disability, medical record, impairment, marital status, pregnancy, potential pregnancy, family responsibilities, criminal record, trade union activity, political opinion, religion, national extraction or social origin. [http://www.wagenet.gov.au/WageNet/templates/PageMaker.asp?category=FactSheets&fileName=../FactSheets/DataFiles/General/Discrimination.html](http://www.wagenet.gov.au/WageNet/templates/PageMaker.asp?category=FactSheets&fileName=../FactSheets/DataFiles/General/Discrimination.html) But I suspect that it’s not illegal in jurisdictions within the US. ---
**Author:** ![muttrox](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/a8b319/32.png) [@muttrox](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/muttrox)\ **Post date:** [December 2, 2004, 8:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-you-claim-discrimination-over-political-affiliation/277750/3 "2004-12-02T20:09:45Z")
Political affiliation is not generally a protected class. At least federally, I think you’re out of luck. (The government itself often purges many employees purely on the basis of party affiliation.) Interesting realworld case study at: [http://slate.msn.com/id/2106714](http://slate.msn.com/id/2106714) ---
**Author:** ![RevCo](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/9fc348/32.png) [@RevCo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RevCo)\ **Post date:** [December 2, 2004, 8:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-you-claim-discrimination-over-political-affiliation/277750/4 "2004-12-02T20:10:15Z")
> [@Giles](#): > > Any legal question depends on jurisdiction. In Australia, discrimination on political grounds is illegal: > > [http://www.wagenet.gov.au/WageNet/templates/PageMaker.asp?category=FactSheets&fileName=../FactSheets/DataFiles/General/Discrimination.html](http://www.wagenet.gov.au/WageNet/templates/PageMaker.asp?category=FactSheets&fileName=../FactSheets/DataFiles/General/Discrimination.html) > But I suspect that it’s not illegal in jurisdictions within the US. Thanks - I was more or less referring to the US - but I’ve never heard of this happening anywhere - either it’s not newsworthy, I’m not checking the right sources, or it’s not happening. IANAL so it could be all of the above, so to speak. ---
**Author:** ![RevCo](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/9fc348/32.png) [@RevCo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RevCo)\ **Post date:** [December 2, 2004, 8:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-you-claim-discrimination-over-political-affiliation/277750/5 "2004-12-02T20:27:37Z")
> [@muttrox](#): > > Political affiliation is not generally a protected class. At least federally, I think you’re out of luck. (The government itself often purges many employees purely on the basis of party affiliation.) > > Interesting realworld case study at: > [http://slate.msn.com/id/2106714](http://slate.msn.com/id/2106714) Thanks for the info, and if someone could also answer: Am I correct to assume Political affiliation is not generally protected, but it’s still not something you could ask about at an interview as a prerequisite to hiring? ---
**Author:** ![Reepicheep](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/ed655f/32.png) [@Reepicheep](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Reepicheep)\ **Post date:** [December 2, 2004, 8:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-you-claim-discrimination-over-political-affiliation/277750/6 "2004-12-02T20:58:25Z")
> [@muttrox](#): > > Political affiliation is not generally a protected class. At least federally, I think you’re out of luck. (The government itself often purges many employees purely on the basis of party affiliation.) > > Interesting realworld case study at: > [http://slate.msn.com/id/2106714](http://slate.msn.com/id/2106714) Cite, please, for the purges. I am interested because both my very liberal parents worked for the Federal government (Dept. of Labor and Dept. of Justice) under Nixon, Reagan and the elder Bush. Both worked 30 years for the Federal government and retired with full bennies. My grandfather, who was proud to be ‘denounced as a communist’ in his hometown paper, also worked for the Federal government, for at least 15 years. He retired during Reagan’s presidency. Politics was much discussed at the kitchen table in my house, while I was growing up. I do not ever remember hearing about people being purged for political reasons. ---
**Author:** ![RealityChuck](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/realitychuck/32/195_2.png) [@RealityChuck](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RealityChuck)\ **Post date:** [December 2, 2004, 9:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-you-claim-discrimination-over-political-affiliation/277750/7 "2004-12-02T21:12:00Z")
Most government workers are civil service, and can’t be purged due to political affiliation. There are, however, “purges” of the top level administrative employees whenever a new party comes to power. You want your department headss (e.g., the cabinet) to be in your own party. But that only applies to a handful of top-level employees; the vast majority of those working cannot be fired due to a political change. ---
**Author:** ![muttrox](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/a8b319/32.png) [@muttrox](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/muttrox)\ **Post date:** [December 2, 2004, 9:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-you-claim-discrimination-over-political-affiliation/277750/8 "2004-12-02T21:21:31Z")
My previous post was poorly phrased, I meant pretty much what Reality Chuck just said. ---
**Author:** ![Freddy\_the\_Pig](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/a587f6/32.png) [@Freddy\_the\_Pig](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Freddy_the_Pig)\ **Post date:** [December 3, 2004, 1:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-you-claim-discrimination-over-political-affiliation/277750/9 "2004-12-03T01:23:56Z")
The state law of Illinois requires > [@](#): > > . . . freedom from discrimination against any individual because of his or her race, color, religion, sex, national origin, ancestry, age, marital status, physical or mental handicap, military status, or unfavorable discharge from military service in connection with employment, real estate transactions, access to financial credit, and the availability of public accommodations. Since there is no mention of political affiliation, it would not be illegal _on its face_ to discriminate on that basis or to ask about it during a job interview. That said, I wouldn’t advise an employer to do it (unless it was relevant to the job). Political preference correlates with some of the attributes that _are_ protected, such as race and gender. I’m sure it would not escape a court’s attention that a ban on hiring Democrats would greatly reduce an employer’s percentage of African American employees. With respect to other states, I’m not aware of any state that explicitly protects political affiliation. (That doesn’t mean that there aren’t any.) However, some states make it easier to sue an employer for any form of “wrongful termination”–that is, for being fired for reasons clearly unrelated to job performance. If you were _fired_ (as opposed to _not hired_) in such a state for political affiliation, and it had no bearing on your job, you might have luck with a lawsuit. However, the same would be true if you were fired for being a fan of the wrong baseball team. ---
**Author:** ![flurb](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/51bf81/32.png) [@flurb](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/flurb)\ **Post date:** [December 3, 2004, 3:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-you-claim-discrimination-over-political-affiliation/277750/10 "2004-12-03T03:34:57Z")
> [@RealityChuck](#): > > Most government workers are civil service, and can’t be purged due to political affiliation. There are, however, “purges” of the top level administrative employees whenever a new party comes to power. You want your department headss (e.g., the cabinet) to be in your own party. But that only applies to a handful of top-level employees; the vast majority of those working cannot be fired due to a political change. To follow up, there are about 2,000 positions in the federal bureaucracy that are “political appointments” – that is, the service of any individual in these positions is at the pleasure of the incumbent administration. These include the obvious, such as Cabinet members, but also includes each agency’s entire upper management heirarchy down to the Deputy Assistant Secretary level. The largest pool of political appointees are “Schedule C” appointees, who are farther down the managment chain but are found to have “policy-determining” positions that require an incumbent in tune with the current administration’s policy preferences. Obviously, numbers-wise these appointees are a fraction of the federal workforce. ---
**Author:** ![galen](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/ecc23a/32.png) [@galen](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/galen)\ **Post date:** [December 3, 2004, 5:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-you-claim-discrimination-over-political-affiliation/277750/11 "2004-12-03T17:01:01Z")
> [@Reepicheep](#): > > I do not ever remember hearing about people being purged for political reasons. There were [serious purges](http://iws.ccccd.edu/kwilkison/Online1302home/20th%20Century/redscare.html) after the end of WWII in all spheres; government, academia, union, and in Hollywood. This has had greater lasting negative affects on US society than most people realize. Specifically, the unions which propelled the bulk of the people in the US into the middle class were essentially decapitated and began the long decline which has effectively ended real social progress in the United States. ---
**Author:** ![Neurotik](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/91b2a8/32.png) [@Neurotik](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Neurotik)\ **Post date:** [December 3, 2004, 6:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-you-claim-discrimination-over-political-affiliation/277750/12 "2004-12-03T18:02:25Z")
Political affiliation is a protected class in Washington, DC. You cannot be discriminated against based on it. ---
**Author:** ![ruadh](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/d2c977/32.png) [@ruadh](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ruadh)\ **Post date:** [December 4, 2004, 11:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-you-claim-discrimination-over-political-affiliation/277750/13 "2004-12-04T23:26:33Z")
There are nine grounds under which discrimination is illegal in Ireland: gender, marital status, family status, age, disability, race, sexual orientation, religious belief and membership of the Travelling community. It is very much legal to discriminate on the basis of political belief and it does happen with regularity to members of certain political parties here.