What is Meant by Protected Group?

When reading about equal employment opportunity law, you will frequently encounter the term "protected group." However, you will not find the term in a statute, and it will not appear in any carefully worded legal document --equal employment opportunity law speaks not in terms of groups, but in terms of bases for discrimination. Some bases for discrimination are unlawful and others are not. A "basis for discrimination" is any trait or characteristic by which people differ.

When Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 was enacted, employment discrimination was widely practiced against specific minorities and against women. Thus, it may seem overly technical to insist that Title VII merely prohibited certain bases for discrimination and that no particular groups were targeted for protection. It is in recognition of reality, then, that the term "protected group" has arisen.

It is nonetheless true that the term "protected group" can apply to whites as well as blacks and to men as well as women in some circumstances. In one instance the protected group may be Seventh Day Adventists, and in another it may be agnostics or atheists. An accurate definition of "protected group" would have to recognize this shifting meaning, which requires that whatever group is so designated is defined, at least in part, by one or another of the prohibited bases.

Do some laws target specific groups? Age discrimination law presents a different matter, however, because there is a specific group defined by federal statute that is protected from age discrimination (individuals at least 40 years of age). State laws, however, may provide a more generalized form of protection on the basis of age.

The laws imposing employment responsibilities on some employers regarding individuals with disabilities, certain veterans and members of the uniformed services also define those to whom their protection extends. Those who have no disability are not protected from discrimination on that basis, nor are the workers who are not protected veterans or uniformed service members.

What are the prohibited bases for discrimination? Various federal and state laws are directed toward the protection of individuals in their civil right to take, hold, and advance in a job free of discrimination based on personal characteristics, including:

• race
• ethnicity
• religion
• sex
• national origin
• citizenship
• age
• disability
• military service.