> Google would likely think twice before deciding even to interview older people.

What? You can't actively avoid interviewing people because they belong to a protected class. That is very much still discriminating.

I didn't say whether avoiding to interview older worker is discrimination or not. It's irrelevant. What I'm trying to call attention to is the likely actual (not intended, but actual) effect of age discrimination law. Also note, the earlier in the hiring process company avoids older people, the harder it is to prove that the law was broken.

> What I'm trying to call attention to is the likely actual (not intended, but actual) effect of age discrimination law.

If your logic holds, Google would actively not try to interview people at all, because Race, Origin, Gender, and Military Status are all protected classes with anti discrimination laws.

How does this disprove what I'm trying to say?

Everyone is in a protected class. Everyone. Even white male Christan Americans. Sure they are less likely to be discriminated against but it surely can and does happen. And lawsuits can and have been filed. There was one the other day here on HN, a company was accused of favoring SE Asians over Americans.

Also despite what crazy MRAs claim the courts have been working to correct gender imbalance that favor females. I can think of a couple off the top of my head - a case that involved male military spouses having to prove they were financially dependent on their spouse in order to receive military benefits and one that involved social security surviving widows getting survivors benefits but not widowers. Both were successfully argued and ruled unconstitutional.

Besides your logic makes absolutely no sense - "I'm going to discriminate against a protected class to avoid lawsuits accusing me of discriminating against a protected class."

Then they would definitely get sued for age discrimination.

I think it is much harder to prove age discrimination earlier in the hiring the process. E.g. when screening resumes. How would you find out the real reason when a particular resume fails screening? Thus the likely incentive for the company is to avoid older people as early as possible. This means older good candidates would fail screening more likely: in effect, discrimination.

It's so often forgotten that the intent of the law vs its actual effect could be in conflict.

The statistics themselves would indicate this. Which is why the lawsuit cites that the average age of a Google engineer is 29 vs the national average of 43. This does not bode well for them.