Should Consumers be Free to Discriminate?

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• Enforcement seems like a huge problem. What are you going to do? Figure out that not enough people are visiting your shop; go find individuals that live nearby that don't use it; sue them, go through immense effort to try to prove that they avoid you because you are black/Jewish/gay/whatever rather than just that they prefer the other store/it's cheaper/they didn't know about you yet; get a legal settlement for, what, maybe $100 probably mostly eaten up by lawyer fees; rinse and repeat. It sounds like the above probably wouldn't even be worth the store owner's time.

  Now maybe something could be done about organized boycotts of you for being an X, but I think that if this was a thing that happened, potential boycotters would just find a way to make it sufficiently unclear that they couldn't get sued.

  Also, as a practical question, how big of an issue is this these days? How common is it that stores go out of business because customers don't want to buy from a store owned by a member of a protected class?

• Great question on the last part. Maybe it's impossible to answer?

  5 out of 10 companies go out of business within 5 years, which suggests a lot of them operate on pretty razor-thin margins.

  http://www.gallup.com/businessjournal/178787/why-new-companies-fail-during-first-five-years.aspx

  So maybe it has a real impact on the businesses of protected groups?

• "it’s illegal to discriminate--as an employer, supplier, or retailer--on the basis of things like gender, sexuality"... my understanding was that sadly it wasn't actually illegal for an employer to discriminate based on sexuality (https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/LGBTemploymentdiscriminationintheUnitedStates). I think the civil rights act only protects race, religion and gender.

  Non American here though so would love to be corrected

• Nope; looks like you're right.

• As Daniel states, it's unenforceable. A simpler point : a consumer is not a public accommodation. We don't offer to BUY from anyone and everyone, if they sell at the price we want. (Doing so WOULD be a way to document discrimination, of course, but it doesn't happen)

  We hold businesses accountable because they are open to the public and have to accommodate the public. We aren't. We can choose to buy today, or not buy today, and nobody has a right to expect us to purchase from them as an individual. Only if we make it our practice to buy from anyone, as a business, are we held to that standard

• I really like that distinction.

• I think this issue also can be extended to apply to cases when consumers discriminate not just against store owners from a protected class, but against store owners / employees who hold a particular political opinion (see: Chick fil A and Mozilla CEO controversies). And while it would be difficult to enforce when it comes to individual consumers making day-to-day choices, we can conceivably prevent organized protests against an individual's livelihood based on his/her beliefs.

  And what are the fundamental principles of being a business? I was under the impression that private businesses do not necessarily "have to accommodate the public", especially not in the same way that government functions do. I thought businesses have the right to refuse service to individuals in general, and protected classes are the exception. So in the private sphere, I think it could be conceptually reciprocal: if business are required to service members of protected classes, consumers should not be allowed to boycott protected classes by the same logic.

• I was thinking about the Chick-Fil-A example, definitely. I remember Mayor Menino saying that they weren't welcome in Boston because the CEO was personally against gay marriage, which seems like it would be... violating the first amendment, maybe?

  I share your instinct that it's wrong for consumers to boycott a company based on a list of certain personal (not-business-related) features of the ownership/employees, but to Daniel's point... I have no idea how to enforce it.

• If u want to lose money, go ahead and discriminate. Just be careful if faced with a lawsuit because no one is gonna allow racism or sexism, your business or not.

• Well, I was wondering about the consumer himself--what if there was some anti-Jewish sentiment that raced across the nation and Americans stopped buying from Jews (or some other class)?

• Interesting question! I've never thought of this subject from this angle.

  First, I would ask the same question Daniel did below - how big of a problem is this? If I understand my history, discrimination against minorities was and is a BIG problem in the US. It makes sense that Congress did something to ameliorate it.

  Obviously consumers discriminate when making purchasing decisions. They discriminate based on price, branding, company mission, etc. I wouldn't agree with all of the purchasing decisions that a given person makes (say, if someone only bought from white-owned companies), but should any of those decisions be illegal?

  Ignoring for a moment the question of "how would you make this illegal," I would say not to worry about it if it isn't causing problems.

• Thanks for pointing out the ambiguity of the terminology.

  I meant to focus specifically on discriminating over things not related to the business: the color or religion or such of the business owner or employees, or such. (Just as an employer can be discriminatory about its hiring based on skills, but not color/religion, of the potential employee.)

  The other thing I'm mulling is how much the size of the problem matters. For other "bad stuff," I think we're generally in favor of something being illegal even if it only happens rarely, just because it's wrong and shouldn't happen--at least on principle. But I"m not sure.

• "I meant to focus specifically on discriminating over things not related to the business: the color or religion or such of the business owner or employees, or such. (Just as an employer can be discriminatory about its hiring based on skills, but not color/religion, of the potential employee.)"

  I think I understand the line you meant to draw. But I also think it might not be a clear line. What exactly marks a "bad" reason to discriminate? I don't eat at Chick-Fil-A anymore, because they donate money to anti-gay groups. I am discriminating based on something that isn't "related to the business?" If so, I still think it's a great way to make purchasing decisions that shape the world we live in in a positive way. To take other examples, what if I discriminate against large companies because I want to support small companies? What if I choose to shop at a black-owned store rather than an equally convenient white-owned store, because I want to support black business owners?

  I guess you could say in these instances that I'm not discriminating based on religion or race, per se, but on consequences. I don't want to support anti-gay groups. I don't want to help small companies get eliminated. I want underrepresented groups to succeed in business. (The latter two examples are hypothetical; I haven't fact-checked them.) Still, I don't know that discriminatory acts can be easily sorted into different types.

  "The other thing I'm mulling is how much the size of the problem matters. For other "bad stuff," I think we're generally in favor of something being illegal even if it only happens rarely, just because it's wrong and shouldn't happen--at least on principle."

  Well I don't believe in right and wrong, so this argument won't work very well with me (although I'm sure it will with others).

  But from a legal standpoint, I think the size of the problem is exactly what matters. Legislating against things that are "just wrong" is the reason we have anti-sodomy laws, or anti-blasphemy laws. Many of these laws have been overturned or made moot by Constitutional amendments for precisely the reason that the State must have a compelling reason to restrict its citizens' freedoms. Why anybody feels is "wrong" is irrelevant (and incredibly subjective) in the absense of any evidence of harm.

  I'm not saying that our government couldn't work the way you describe, or that it hasn't worked that way in the past, but I don't believe that's how it is intended to work - either historically or in the present day.

• Sorry about the positioning of this comment; I totally didn't see the "Reply" button.

• Also the above sentence should read:

  What anybody feels is "wrong" is irrelevant (and incredibly subjective) in the absense of any evidence of harm.

• This is the stupidest thing I've ever read. I am currently boycotting several stores and many acting professionals. Boycotting would be covered under the right to pursue happiness.

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