I gathered many takeaways from this course; on a broad scale, I found a deeper understanding of the entire recruitment and hiring process. Something as simple as creating task statements and their use had never occurred to me. On a smaller scope, there were many laws I did not understand or knew existed.

The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission created a ⅘ rule, meaning that an hr practice is legally considered discriminatory if the hiring rate of a protected class is less than ⅘ the hiring rate of a majority group. I also learned that the Civil Rights act of 1964 does not apply to everyone; instead, it applies to all employees in interstate commerce, businesses with fifteen or more employees, and working more than 20 weeks per year. This made it illegal for the employer to punish(fire or demote) an employee for discrimination and required an employer to give a reasonable accommodation unless it caused undue hardship (in which case the organization would need to prove this).

Equal Employment Opportunity is the idea that everyone should have a fair chance, no matter their race, color, religion, sex, age, disability, or national origin. However, in this class, I discovered through the Age Discrimination act of 1967 that the younger age group is not considered part of the protected class; it only applies to employees over 40 years of age. More protected types have been added over time: military experience, marital status, and even genetic information.

The Americans with Disabilities act of 1990; was further amended in 2008, which was the rule that if someone can perform the essential functions of the job with or without reasonable accommodations, it is illegal to discriminate against hiring them. A fun fact from this class was that according to a court in 1997, being morbidly obese is a disability. I thoroughly enjoyed this class.