The issue of age discrimination is still eminent in several state and private corporations in the US and across the world, regardless of several labor laws that have been enacted to curb the practice. This paper looks at the case of age discrimination at Ohio State University, where the two employees, Julianne Taaffe, and Kathryn Moon, sued the institution for having discriminated the aged employees. The main business of the institution is to offer knowledge in different academic fields such as law, business, education, psychology, marketing management, etc. The University’s mission is to impart knowledge, intellectual and personal development of all its students. The University is located at Columbus, Ohio State which is among the largest states in the United States of America. The University covers an area of 120km 2 and has enrolled a total of 45, 900 students and has male and female gender distribution of 52% and 48% of the total number of students. Ohio State University’s main sales tools include social media, newspapers, brochures, magazines, television, radio, etc.
The Situation Leading To the Lawsuit
Normally, it is an unusual thing to sue your former employer, but to Julianne Taaffe and Kathryn Moon, this seemed normal as they went ahead and sued their former employer which is the Ohio State University for having discriminated against their old age (Span, 2018). The two ladies have been pursuing the federal lawsuit against the University’s administration for nearly four years as they wait for action by the court, the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission and the rest of human right institutions against the University. The situation that led to this lawsuit is that the duo had worked for the University in the English department as a second language since the year 1983 as they teach students and help the administration in various capacities. Moreover, they helped the University to build a program from the ground up but later on the director of the program began discriminating against them and the rest of veteran E.S.L. staffers and instead promoted the rest of less experienced and younger employees. This action made Julianne Taaffe and Kathryn Moon wonder why the administration decided to treat them this badly despite the consistent first-rate and excellent performance they had achieved for the institution.
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The court verdict and penalty
On November 2018, the court made a verdict and found that age discrimination castigated against Julianne Taaffe and Kathryn Moon and the rest of older employees was reasonably caused to believe, and the duo and their older colleagues had been grossly discriminated against, and this was a violation of the federal laws against age discrimination (Farrel, 2018). The University was given a penalty of rehiring the two women and the rest of older women laid off and forced to pay back to the women all the retroactive benefits which amounted to $203,000 and $237,000 for both Julianne Taaffe and Kathryn Moon respectively. Moreover, the institution was also forced to pay a total of $325,000 to the AARP Foundation lawyers and the law firm called the Gittes Law Group which represented the women.
I feel this verdict was appropriate because age discrimination is against the law and employee’s rights, as well as any organization or institution, found perpetuating this act needs to be punished the same way the Ohio State University was punished . Miller (2018) and Terrell (2018) argue that aging is a reality of life and no employee should be discriminated against because of his/her old age. Discrimination at the workplace usually comes in two forms where it can be inferential or (in)direct. These are the main two types of employment discriminations usually perpetrated against employees, and they involve promotion or hiring processes (Miller, 2018). The first theory of recovery is known as the disparate treatment which is defined as the intentional treatment of employees or applicants will little concern as compared to others with regards to one of the protected classes of sex, race, nationality, age, religion, gender or disability (Terrell, 2018). All employees are expected to demonstrate evidence of their employer’s particular intent to discriminate since discrimination against them is always intentional, purposeful and willful; nonetheless, the intent to discriminate can sometimes be inferred .
The court decision or media coverage on a company’s stakeholders is normally disastrous because it damages the organization’s reputation and negatively exposes the organization to the outside world (Farrel, 2018). A company whose reputation has been damaged is likely to lose several customers, experience decline, sales, and revenue and finally collapse. This will have a negative impact on the company’s shareholders as they experience significant losses. A company that needs to fight against age discrimination needs to include age as a prohibited form of discrimination in its policies and laws (Farrel, 2018). In case of a multinational company, the policies and laws of the organization touching on employees should be adjusted in a way that old and experienced employees are given the opportunities to work until their retirement age without discrimination and their retirement benefits paid without any problem. This is the reason why several countries across the world, including the United States of American, hope to convince all older employees to continue working longer and claim their retirement benefits upon retirement.
References
Span, P. (2018). He called older employees ‘Dead Wood.’ two sued for age discrimination. The New York Times . Retrieved at https://www.nytimes.com/2018/07/06/health/age-discrimination-ohio-state.html
Farrel, C. (2018). EEOC head on age discrimination by employers. Forbes . Retrieved at https://www.forbes.com/sites/nextavenue/2018/08/17/eeoc-head-on-age-discrimination-by-employers/#2cbc66b32886
Miller, M. (2018). U.S. court cases aim to rein in age-discrimination hiring practices. Reuters . Retrieved at https://www.reuters.com/article/us-column-miller-agediscrimination/u-s-court-cases-aim-to-rein-in-age-discrimination-hiring-practices-idUSKCN1LL2FP
Terrell, K. (2018). 3 lawsuits that could stop age discrimination . Retrieved at https://www.aarp.org/work/working-at-50-plus/info-2017/adea-lawsuits-fd.html
