Reblogged:Snowflakes: The Cure for Age Discrimination

[Gus Van Horn blog]

As an advocate of laissez-faire capitalism, let me immediately be clear that my title is somewhat tongue-in-cheek. However we might evaluate them morally, employers should be free to employ (or not) anyone they please, and for whatever reason, sound or not. Unfortunately, our universities are giving employers some very solid reasons to look apprehensively at recent graduates, as you shall see.

That said, anyone who reads Suzanne Lucas's latest column, about snowflakes (aka, eggshell plaintiffs) landing in the workplace, will become quite concerned about the blizzard of frivolous lawsuits that will arrive when "the campus culture wars [come] to your office":

It's a huge mind shift -- where people are always taught to appeal to an authority and that authority is you, but you're expected to side with the complainant. That's not how ... business works, and you'll prevail (hopefully) in the courts, but do you want to go through that hassle over imaginedracial or gender slights?

If you don't, you'll want to be actively aware and involved in what is happening in the universities. [link added]

Although the best solution to this problem is to separate state and academy, we are so far from that ideal that the best immediate course of action is the one suggested by Lucas. Read the whole thing.

-- CAV

Link to Original