American Dream = "The Government Will Provide"?

That's the impression one gets from two news items I came across today.

The first is courtesy of a link from The Silicon Graybeard to a blog I hadn't previously encountered, Free North Carolina. It embedded this video report from Fox News, describing how today's students see the 'American Dream' and its implications. It's worth watching.

Within minutes of finding that clip, Tanker over at Mostly Cajun pointed me to this news report.

Employers are facing more uncertainty in the wake of a letter from the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission warning them that requiring a high school diploma from a job applicant might violate the Americans with Disabilities Act.

The development also has some wondering whether the agency’s advice will result in an educational backlash by creating less of an incentive for some high school students to graduate.

The “informal discussion letter” from the EEOC said an employer’s requirement of a high school diploma, long a standard criterion for screening potential employees, must be “job-related for the position in question and consistent with business necessity.” The letter was posted on the commission’s website on Dec. 2.

Employers could run afoul of the ADA if their requirement of a high school diploma “ ‘screens out’ an individual who is unable to graduate because of a learning disability that meets the ADA’s definition of ‘disability,’ ” the EEOC explained.

There's more at the link. The report is particularly worrying because the ADAAA of 2008, which amended and updated the original ADA of 1990, specifically relaxed and expanded the definition of what constitutes a disability, and gave much more latitude to the (allegedly) disabled worker's perspective rather than an objective standard, or the interests of the employer. The EEOC's new interpretation of specified educational standards may once again favor the work-seeker over the legitimate requirements of the employer.

Putting these reports together, it seems that students already think that the American Dream means that the US government will provide for them in all things . . . and now an agency of that same government is telling them, in so many words, that they may not even need to be students at all if they can find a politically-correct reason to claim an educationally-related 'disability'!

Remember in November - and vote out every dumbass politician who practices or preaches this philosophy!





Peter