Is this acceptable behaviour for an employer?
I woke up on Saturday morning to read a shocking article about Buzzfeed Canada’s Senior Writer Scaachi Koul. I wasn’t upset with Buzzfeed’s intention to hire a diversity of writers; variety is a good thing, particularly when it comes to words and ideas. There’s also nothing illegal about running ethically managed affirmative action plan.
If you’ve read most responses in the Canadian media you might have been fooled into thinking that Koul was a victim of a great wrong. BuzzFeed writer’s harassment just the latest example of why Twitter is broken for women, wrote the Globe and Mail; It’s Unacceptable That Scaachi Koul Was Harassed Off Twitter, said the Huffington Post. But as we learned from the Gregory Alan Elliott case, writers for the Globe and Huffington Post aren’t averse to publishing misleading articles for their allies.
Scaachi Koul’s call for submissions wasn’t a simple request for diversity, it was written in a way that left many seeing it as a bigoted and hateful attack. I have no problem if Koul wishes to demonstrate her bigotry, always prefer to know who the bigots are. That said, she crossed the line when she put it into the context of a job ad. Not only is it unlawful to ridicule an identifiable group in an employment situation- but it’s also a slippery slope, one that could hurt people of all identifiable groups.
