Smokers Need Not Apply. This Isn't Discrimination!

Smokers will be barred from employment with Susquehanna Health, Pennsylvania, from 1 January. Susquehanna Health states that it can get away with this because smokers are not protected under the law.  As usual Michael Siegel succinctly explains why this is nonsense:

Let's first get one thing straight. The Susquehanna Health systems spokesperson is dead wrong when she states that: "tobacco users are not a protected class under the law, so prohibiting the hiring of tobacco users is not discrimination."

It's not illegal discrimination, but it sure as heck is discrimination.



The spokesperson herself essentially admits this later on in the article when she acknowledges that she is "aware that we may lose some top candidates as a result of this policy." She is thus stating that the policy represents a systematic exclusion of a group of people from employment upon a criterion that is not directly related to the qualifications for employment. That is, in fact, the definition of employment discrimination.

[my emphasis, original emphasis on 'definition' only]

This employer is in fact putting good health care secondary to pursuing a policy against smokers that is, as Siegel explains, based purely and simply on discrimination. The criteria for employing people should be their suitability. This decision must be contested. This employer will lose good employees to its competitors. 

Not discriminating means not discriminating. It doesn't mean looking for those people who are unprotected in law and picking on them. It doesn' t entitle you to say, 'It's not discrmination because smokers are not protected'. Indeed it is hard to see what twist of logic would allow someone to morally justify discriminating against people simply because the law allows it.

This is a despicable policy with no legitimacy. It should also serve to illustrate that discrimination should be enshrined in law in a way that protects everybody – rather than on specific groups such as race, gender, sexual or otherwise. Only if applied to everyone does it protect us all from discrimination.