Imaginary situation: a candidate arrives to a job interview for a position of software engineer. She had notified the HR manager that she has severe mobility problems and thus can't move around unless absolutely necessary. However, the interviewer demanded her to stand up and draw on the whiteboard during the interview, and insisted that she has to do that.
Should this be considered as an act of discrimination?
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Pat W.
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user626528
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2 Answers
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Yes, this would be an ADA violation
The Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) requires that "reasonable accommodations" be provided to people with disabilities in both the job application process and in the workplace. Specifically, this would be a failure to provide "modifications or adjustments to a job application process that enable a qualified applicant with a disability to be considered for the position such qualified applicant desires" as described in the EEOC enforcement guidelines.
Software engineers generally are not required to stand up and move around much to do their jobs, so the employer wouldn't have an argument that requiring an applicant to do so in the interview process is somehow related to job requirements. I'm a software engineer myself, and I spend almost my entire day sitting down (and very little time drawing on whiteboards, especially now that I'm not allowed to be in the building where the whiteboards are). Possible reasonable accommodations would include getting a portable whiteboard that's lower to the ground or allowing the candidate to draw on paper instead.
Ryan M
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Depends what the job was.
If you had to lecture in front of a class and walk around to help students with their work then maybe it was not.
If you just sat and coded all day then definitely yes.
yukfoo
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