殖民主义是根源——析《印度之行》

在一些人看来,《印度之行》中的英国殖民者和印度人民之间存在着一条几乎无法逾越的鸿沟,这是由于英国人缺乏同情心,缺乏想象力和印度人的善意、真诚而缺乏实际能力的精神状态之间的矛盾所造成的。本文不赞同这一观点。笔者认为:两者之间的矛盾根源于英国的殖民主义和由此产生的种族歧视。     

FAMILY CARE COMMITMENT DISCRIMINATION: BRIDGING THE GAP BETWEEN WORK AND FAMILY

This Note discusses the pervasive problem of employment discrimination based on family responsibilities, or family care commitment discrimination. Employees with family care commitments often find themselves being pulled in opposing directions—between work and family. When an employee is forced to choose work, for financial reasons, over family, his or her family ends up suffering. The current state and federal statutes aimed at employment discrimination are insufficient to deal with family care commitment discrimination. This Note proposes a change to the current legislation and explains how this change will protect employees and families, while causing employers to internalize externalities by adopting more family‐friendly policies.     

制度性歧视与平等权利保障机构的功能——以农民权利保障为视角

制度性歧视是指由国家的正式规则所形成或被国家的正式规则所接受和保护的歧视。城市化进程中针对农民的歧视性制度安排,主要表现在经济和社会领域。具体可分为如下几类:户籍制度;农地征用制度;社会保障制度;教育制度;就业制度等。上述歧视性的制度安排严重侵犯了农民财产权、劳动权、获得物质帮助权、教育权等基本的宪法权利。通过立法的方式建立专门的以反歧视为目的的平等权利保障机构或职能更宽泛的人权保障机构,既是国际人权法所倡导的,在世界上许多国家以及我国的香港地区已有成功的实践经验。平等权利保障机构就其功能而言,适合于以大多数农民为代表的弱势群体的生存状态和权利诉求。     

我国农民工就业歧视问题的心理学解释

农民工在城市就业所遭遇的歧视可以从心理学的角度进行剖析。歧视源于偏见,偏见产生的原因在于社会群体的利害冲突、社会化、个体人格和心理因素,偏见会产生预言的自我实现和疏离。要想消除偏见必须消除刻板印象、增加平等的接触并树立共同命运的意识,而且要制定有助于消除偏见的社会规范。     

Cognitive limitations and affirmative action: The effects of aggregate versus sequential data in the perception of discrimination

The present experiment examined whether or not relatively simple cognitive and information-processing limitations may prevent us from recognizing instances of organizational discrimination. It was hypothesized that the perception of discrimination would be more difficult when the relevant information had been presented in a case-by-case basis rather than in aggregate format. The obtained results provided strong support for the original hypothesis. Subjects who had been presented with company data in aggregate format provided significantly higher ratings of discrimination than those subjects for whom the information had been presented in sequential form. The implications of these findings to the policy of affirmative action are also discussed.     

“哀其不幸,怒其不争”新读——以农民工媒介形象为例

媒介歧视现象破坏了媒体客观、公正的报道原则,给大众造成了认知上的混乱。农民工的产生为社会提供了大量的媒介资源和新闻源。大众传媒作为社会系统的一个子系统怎样应对值得深思:它既可以产生出以人文关怀为主的大众传媒的新语境,也可能由于某种利益的驱使,出现标签化、概念化污名化的现象。如何确立和保持人的尊严?如何寻找失落的自我?无论怎样,人的关怀都应是一个现代社会的基本品格。为了社会的安定和谐,为了全民素质的提高,亦为了利益最大化的实现,媒介有不可推卸的责任,我们应当对此作出理性选择。     

THE GOODS AND SERVICES DIRECTIVE: LIMITATIONS AND OPPORTUNITIES

The Goods and Services Directive adopted in December 2004 is the very first European Community instrument to implement the principle of gender equality outside the workplace. As such it has the potential to close an important gap in European Union law. This note, however, contends that the limited scope of application of the Directive, together with doubts surrounding its legal base and position within the overall gender equality framework of the Union, have significantly undermined its potential. Nevertheless, it is suggested that for the future, should these criticisms be adequately addressed, then the Directive may provide an important platform for the wider diffusion of the gender equality principle beyond the sphere of European employment law. Council Directive 2004/113/EC of 13 December 2004 implementing the principle of equal treatment between men and women in the access to and supply of goods and services OJ L373 (2004) 37     

Fighting Housing Discrimination in Europe

ABSTRACT

There is no exact European equivalent to the U.S. Fair Housing Act. The member states of the European Union (EU) have transposed into law the EU Racial Equality Directive of 2000 that prohibits discrimination in, among other things, access to the supply of goods and services, including housing, on the basis of race. Most housing discrimination case law so far comes from nonbinding decisions of the European Court of Human Rights and European Committee of Social Rights under the revised European Social Charter of the Council of Europe. This article explains how the European context of discrimination and segregation differs from the American, reviews the major legal conventions establishing equal rights in housing, protected classes, and key precedents. It discusses how mixing policies in social housing are the primary mechanism to reduce residential segregation in Europe. The special case of extreme discrimination against the Roma is presented, before concluding with some comparative observations.     

Yesterday's war; tomorrow's technology: peer commentary on ‘Ethical,legal, social and policy issues in the use of genomic technologies by the US military’

A recent article by Maxwell J. Mehlman and Tracy Yeheng Li, in the Journal of Law and the Biosciences, sought to examine the ethical, legal, social, and policy issues associated with the use of genetic screening and germ-line therapies (‘genomic technologies’) by the US Military. In this commentary, we will elaborate several related matters: the relationship between genetic and non-genetic screening methods, the history of selection processes and force strength, and the consequences and ethics of, as Mehlman and Li suggest, engineering enhanced soldiers. We contend, first, that the strengths of genomic testing as a method of determining enrollment in the armed forces has limited appeal, given the state of current selection methods in the US armed forces. Second, that the vagaries of genetic selection, much like other forms of selection that do not bear causally or reliably on soldier performance (such as race, gender, and sexuality), pose a systematic threat to force strength by limiting the (valuable) diversity of combat units. Third, that the idea of enhancing warfighters through germ-line interventions poses serious ethical issues in terms of the control and ownership of ‘enhancements’ when members separate from service.     

The problems of liminal states,line drawing,and false dichotomies

This commentary focuses on the tenuous line between health and disease and the conflicting characterizations of genetic predisposition that sometimes place it on one side of that line, and sometimes on the other. For example, GINA uses the line between health and disease to distinguish between, respectively, the healthy (including, those with genetic predispositions), who are shielded from discrimination, and those with ‘manifested illness,’ who are not. At the same time, some have argued that the Americans with Disabilities Act protects individuals with genetic predispositions, relying on a label akin to disability, as opposed to health, to characterize this group. Similarly, courts have described genetic predisposition as a disease of sorts to justify insurance payment for medical intervention. Attempts to fit genetic predisposition neatly into the binary world of health or illness can be problematic because this dichotomy doesn''t capture the complex continuum between those states. Some individuals reside in yet another ‘liminal’ state when they develop mild symptoms or biomarkers, placing them somewhere between genetic predisposition and actual disease manifestation. As a result, they may be unprotected under existing frameworks. Liminal states are therefore problematic not only with respect to insurance reimbursement, but in other areas as well.