Employee Census Discriminatory

I have a co-worker who's son is taking his carpentry aprenticeship. He was recently handed a package by the school board to fill out. It wasn't mandetory to complete it but it brings to light some startling new trends in today's work place.

The package asks, among other things, what your ethnicity and sexual orientation are. These, according to the school borads who are also making teachers fill them out, are to ensure "fair" hiring practices. Fair? I don't think being gay or streight matters unless your applying for a job at a bar on Church & Welsley. For the longest time, we were trying to build a racially and ethnically blind society, now we are trying to single people out. This is once again an affermative action program. I question if these kinds of practices are really needed today. Organizations without these programs do not encounter problems with hiring inequalities. They base their employment practices on whether or not you are qualified for the job, not on your skin colour or who you go home to at night. Yet they still get a fair mix. Walk into any retail store or office and you'll see what I mean. In my opinion, the school boards have no business asking these questions. They need to get out of their ivory towers and understand that problems of racially discriminatory hiring practices have drifted into the shadows since the 70s and 80s. Affirmative action is no longer needed. We all loose when what we are begins to determine our future, rather than who we are.