How Does the Law Defines Discrimination?
Discrimination. You may not be able to explain it, but you definitely know what it feels like. The City of Seattle was a pioneer in establishing a Human Rights Department back in 1969 to challenge discrimination in Seattle. Today we have some of the strongest civil rights protections of any city in the country. And yet, people ask me all the time, “Why can’t the Seattle Office for Civil Rights do more to prevent discrimination?” That’s a hard question to answer, because it hits me right where I live. I’ve fought discrimination all my life, I’ve been a target of discrimination all my life, and I’m as tired of it as any of you who are reading these words. When the Seattle Office for Civil Rights investigates an individual’s complaint about possible illegal treatment, we are required to work within a specific legal definition of the term. According to the law, a person’s action needs to meet three tests to qualify as illegal discrimination: • The action has to be unequal. Someone has to t
