Defining and Quantifying Potentially Discriminatory Questions in Employment Interviewing

A study determined what constitutes an illegal pre-employment question, reviewed current laws and literature on the subject, and determined the prevalence of illegal questions asked by organizations. Except in the case of specific statutory law, there is no precise way to define what constitutes an illegal question; however, state and federal guidelines as well as established case law provide fairly clear parameters. A survey of the human rights and labor departments of all 50 states, designed to determine which states had enacted stronger legislation than the general framework provided by federal legislation, indicated a range of no laws to very specific laws concerning employment screening. A survey questionnaire, designed to determine the extent to which employers would ask or consider asking illegal questions, was sent to 350 various organizations in Wisconsin and returned by 157 organizations. The sample of organizations was stratified in relation to nine basic industry types and the number of employees. Results indicated that: (1) a large majority of organizations are likely to be asking potentially illegal questions in their pre-employment screening process; (2) the food service/restaurant and wholesale/retail trade industries appear to be the worst potential offenders; and (3) larger organizations are less likely to ask potentially illegal questions than smaller organizations. (Twenty references, four tables of data, and an appendix containing a list of legal and potentially illegal questions are attached.) (RS)