I had a professor once who said, "There's an exception to every rule, including this one."
Making blanket statements about what constitutes unlawful discrimination is fraught with problems. For the most part, I would say that hiring on the basis of race is probably illegal by any entity in the US.
However, hiring on the basis of national origin may be acceptable. Here is a quote from an HR attorney:
Quote:
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"And then sometimes the courts will allow exceptions for reasons of authenticity," such as when a Chinese restaurant hires only Chinese waiters. In such cases, "the defense has been, 'Part of our appeal is that we create an authentic environment. We have the correct decorations, and we need to have the correct waiters, because that's what the customers pay for,'" she says. "Some courts have accepted such a defense; others haven't. It's a question of what is being sold--food alone or food plus atmosphere."
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As Mazo pointed out, there is an exclusion in the law for churches. For instance, a Catholic church may lawfully hire only Catholics. The same is true for other religious-based 501c3 orgs. For instance, Bob Jones University is allowed to have a "faith" test prior to employing someone. However, the school may pay a hefty price when it accepts federal funds. If I remember correctly, it's not the funds that students get as a part of their scholarship/loan package (since the gov't must offer it to every student regardless of faith), but rather any federal funds distributed directly to the school.
An entity can also escape some problems by its character. A mom & pop grocery that is on a city street (not a highway) that has (I think) fewer than 5 employees is not subject to the law.
CFA, however, engages in interstate commerce, is a multi-state corporation, and has the requisite number of employees necessary to make them obey the law with regard to unlawful discrimination.
And I'm going to disagree with Mazo. Even assuming that Covenant is a publicly traded company, operates an interstate business and has the requisite number of employees, it has the perfect right to establish company policies and slogans. It has NO right to screen potential employees or make hiring and firing decisions based on its religious position, however, if it makes known to potential employees that they will be in trucks with that message, then the employees or potential employees have the right to make the decision to go forward. Now, if Covenant said to potential employees, "You have to sign this statement of faith to get the job," then that would be problematic, I think.
What am I saying here? These are case by case issues, and whether or not it is unlawful discrimination is dependent on the facts of each case.
Where is Nat Hentoff when you need him?
What are those?
