Affirmative Action, Employer Branding, and Age Discrimination
This paper provides a comprehensive overview of affirmative action in the workplace, tracing its origins from Executive Order 10925 under President Kennedy through its evolution into three distinct legal contexts. It explains the components of an affirmative action plan, including reasonable self-analysis, reasonable basis, and reasonable action. The paper then analyzes website design strategies used by three top-ranked grocery retailers — Nugget Markets, Wegmans Food Market, and Whole Foods Market — to attract talent as employers of choice, offering recommendations for improvement. Finally, it examines a hypothetical age discrimination case under the Age Discrimination in Employment Act (ADEA), presenting both a disparate treatment claim and a rebuttal from the employer's perspective.
- Introduction to Affirmative Action: Origins, legal basis, and core purposes of affirmative action
- Building an Affirmative Action Plan: Three elements: self-analysis, reasonable basis, and action
- Employer of Choice: Grocery Store Website Analysis: Website design review of Nugget, Wegmans, and Whole Foods
- Applying Website Best Practices: Recommendations for improving the grocery chain's website
- Disparate Treatment Claim Under the ADEA: Prima facie age discrimination case against WDE employer
- Employer Rebuttal to the Age Discrimination Claim: WDE's counterarguments against the discrimination complaint
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What makes this paper effective
- The paper moves logically from foundational legal history to practical HR application, demonstrating strong thematic coherence across three distinct topic areas.
- The disparate treatment section is particularly well-constructed, presenting both a claim and a rebuttal — modeling the kind of adversarial legal analysis expected in HR and employment law courses.
- The website analysis section grounds abstract "employer of choice" concepts in specific, observable design features, making the recommendations concrete and actionable.
Key academic technique demonstrated
The paper demonstrates the use of a prima facie case framework drawn from employment law to structure an argument. By systematically applying each legal element — adverse employment action and discriminatory motive — to the case facts, the writer shows how legal standards translate into practical HR analysis. This structured application of doctrine to facts is a core technique in law-adjacent business writing.
Structure breakdown
The paper is organized into four major sections: (1) a conceptual overview of affirmative action and its legal history; (2) a detailed breakdown of affirmative action plan elements; (3) a comparative analysis of three grocery retailers' career websites with applied recommendations; and (4) a two-sided employment discrimination scenario presenting a disparate treatment claim followed by an employer rebuttal. Each section builds on the prior, moving from law to policy to practice to dispute resolution.
Introduction to Affirmative Action
Affirmative action is a concept that dates back to President John F. Kennedy, when it began as an Executive Order. President Kennedy issued Executive Order 10925, which included a provision requiring government contractors to take affirmative action to ensure the equal treatment of all job applicants regardless of sex, religion, race, national origin, or color (Office of Equal Opportunity and Diversity, 2023). The order was issued to demonstrate the government's commitment to ensuring equal opportunity for all qualified applicants. Moreover, it sought to demonstrate the government's positive action in fostering efforts toward the achievement of true equal opportunity for all. Executive Order 10925 later became Executive Order 11246, which ensures that companies working with the government have a mechanism for taking action against hiring discrimination. Prohibiting hiring discrimination and promoting equal opportunity for all has therefore been the basis for affirmative action. Affirmative action seeks to ensure that qualified underrepresented groups — including minorities — have equal opportunity to be hired (Oyinlade, 2014).
Given its objective, affirmative action refers to specific actions in job recruitment, hiring, and promotions that seek to eliminate discrimination and its effects. It is essentially a set of specific actions that an employer carries out in good faith to ensure that all applicants and employees have equal employment opportunities (Green, 2004). These actions and good-faith efforts include training programs, outreach initiatives, and established procedures. These procedures and actions should be included in the written personnel policies of the company. Written affirmative action plans must be implemented and reviewed annually to ensure equal employment opportunity for all.
Throughout the years, affirmative action has evolved and diverged into three distinct paths. First, affirmative action arises in the context of government contractors, where it is undertaken as a requirement for receiving a federal government contract. This context is the premise upon which President Kennedy established affirmative action under Executive Order 10925. The second context is court-imposed relief, which occurs when a court orders affirmative action as a solution to address past discrimination by an employer. The third context is voluntary affirmative action, which is undertaken at the discretion of an employer (Appel et al., 2005).
According to the Department of Administration (2021), affirmative action is critical in current human resource practices for several reasons. First, it helps to increase the utilization of minorities, people with disabilities, and women across job categories and equal employment opportunity classifications. Second, it helps to address and change employment practices that hinder equal employment opportunity through analysis of specific practices and implementation of corrective measures. Third, affirmative action strengthens accountability and assessment by allocating major responsibilities to management. Finally, it enhances support for equal employment opportunity and workforce diversity — support that is evident in the training affirmative action provides on issues relating to fair employment practices.
References
Appel, R. N., Gray, A. L., & Loy, N. (2005). Affirmative action in the workplace: Forty years later. Hofstra Labor and Employment Law Journal, 22(2), 549–574.
Chopra, R., & Chopra, A. (2018). Innovative HR practices for competitive advantage: A strategic perspective. Journal of Organisation & Human Behavior, 1(2), 32–38.
Cullen, T. A. (2003). Reverse age discrimination suits and the Age Discrimination in Employment Act. Journal of Civil Rights and Economic Development, 18(1), 271–309.
Department of Administration. (2021). Summary of affirmative action. State of Kansas. https://admin.ks.gov/media/cms/ec14b8b9-e7e1-447a-b63a-76d69b57257b.pdf
Green, J. R. (2004). Affirmative action: Challenges and opportunities. Brigham Young University Education and Law Journal, 1, 139–154.
Grones, G. (2020). Are you an employer of choice? Aim to become one. HCAMag.
Legal Information Institute. (2021). 29 CFR § 1608.4 – Establishing affirmative action plans. Cornell Law School. https://www.law.cornell.edu/cfr/text/29/1608.4
Office of Equal Opportunity and Diversity. (2023). A brief history of affirmative action. University of California, Irvine. https://www.oeod.uci.edu/policies/aa_history.php
Oyinlade, A. O. (2014). Models of likelihood of support for affirmative action. International Journal of Liberal Arts and Social Science, 2(5), 154–168.
Zimmer, M. J. (2008). A chain of inferences proving discrimination. University of Colorado Law Review, 79, 1243–1295.
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