Consider expanding this sort of technique to monster/linkdin/glassdoor/etc so that you aren't shown job listings because it can be inferred that you are probably over 30, or Republican, for example.

It seems that ACLU wants to use this as a test case to clarify what is or isn't legal before this practice becomes a pervasive part of the employment market.

Making advertising those jobs on Facebook 2X more expensive is an incentive for those firms to revert to alternative hiring habits that are even more nepotistic, reducing overall access to employment.

This reasoning pre-supposes that only CPM-style ads are available, to the exclusion of CPC or CPA, but that seems unlikely on a platform as modern as FB.

Firstly, it's unethical and morally abhorrent to discriminate on the basis of age, heritage, and gender in general employment markets.

Secondly, the laws exist making illegal these types of hiring discrimination because ethical behavior doesn't come naturally to many people making hiring decisions.

The very-sheltered may have never seen it, but there is a great deal of bigotry out there.

The history of these issues for workers is ugly and bloody. People died to get us to where we are today.

You are free to to apply to any company you want, and they are legally required to judge you on the basis of your skills (equality of opportunity). They are not legally required to hire you on the basis of any demographic you fall into (no equality of outcome).

If 60% of your workforce came from European universities, while 40% other universities -- are you required to advertise to them all equally? What if that 60% figure came about on its own, with no external influence on your part. Maybe they have more international renown for the skills your company just happens to desire? Would you spend the same advertising budget on both institutions?

Sometimes these things happen on their own, But pretending that the businesses doing outreach are 100% accountable for "SOLVING" every demographic composition is simply not vested in reality, especially when these things weren't necessarily broken in the first place.

Presuming bigotry can be in itself a form of intolerance -- we need to be careful!

Huh?

> But pretending that the businesses doing outreach are 100% accountable for "SOLVING" every demographic composition is simply not vested in reality

Uhh....

You're arguing against things none of the ancestors have argued.

You use an example (geographic location of a university), however that is not a protected class under US labor law.

> Presuming bigotry can be in itself a form of intolerance

There certainly are bigots running companies, and in hiring committees. Even in Enlightened Silicon Valley! Ignoring that fact is one of the reasons Facebook now faces a federal lawsuit with substantial merit.

It was abhorrent then, and it is still abhorrent now.

If I'm a nursing school, I'm spending 90% of my marketing dollars on advertising to 18-35 women. Anything else is a calculated attempt at capturing a new market (possibly to fulfill demographic quotas), not arbitrary spending to make sure every demographic on the planet sees the ad.

Personally, I prefer a more level playing field even if it is a bit more expensive. We're rich enough to afford it.

If I really want to be advertised products marketed to women, what do I do? Turn on TLC, or complain that ESPN isn't showing enough female-oriented ads?

Life isn't fair. Nothing is equal that isn't equal. We can do our best on an individual level but it's unreasonable to expect businesses to do anything more than treat applicants and employees of all demographics equally (which is an ongoing effort). Everything else is a statistic, and businesses will readily graze up against as many rules as possible. The checks and balances of this system is that when a business is caught blatantly discriminating, it turns into national news and they are punished financially.

The upside to this is that ethics and financial interests often align; businesses that are ethical have better public perception, and also attract better employees. Macrocosm and microcosm aligned.

If I wanted to go to nursing school as a male, I'm going to start researching, not wait for facebook to show me an ad.