> I thought unless it was a protected class, discrimination is ok.
That is also my understanding, but everyone except young white males are in a protected class. Granted, young white males are pretty common in tech, but you would still be wise to design your HR practices in such a way as to avoid lawsuits.
Agreed it would be wise to consider lawsuits when hiring. I do think though that's only one part of the equation. What you want to really optimize for is maximizing profit. Maximized profit may mean paying out lawsuits is cheaper than losing good candidates or implementing a poor or ineffective hiring process. There's also the risk of implementing a hiring process for which the expense of minimizing lawsuits is greater than the potential lawsuits themselves.
That is also my understanding, but everyone except young white males are in a protected class. Granted, young white males are pretty common in tech, but you would still be wise to design your HR practices in such a way as to avoid lawsuits.