Chapter 8 From anti-discrimination to striving for equality

In March 2004, a police station in Longgang, Shenzhen, hung a banner in the area under its jurisdiction, "Anyone who reports extortion and extortion crimes of Henan gangs and will be rewarded with 500 yuan." On April 15, two Henan citizens confronted Longgang police in Zhengzhou Initiate judicial proceedings. A stone stirs up a thousand waves.An ordinary discrimination lawsuit elicits strong social reaction because there are few discrimination lawsuits in China, and because it is a multi-faceted topic. 1. What is discrimination? There have always been few discrimination lawsuits in China, which does not mean that there is no discrimination, but that the people have always had no clear definition and concept of discrimination.Discriminators and discriminated persons, when discrimination occurs, do not even feel that it is discrimination, but take it for granted.An important reason is that people have never questioned the government's discriminatory laws for a long time.Those who have been violated believe that as long as it is a law formulated by the government, it is the golden rule, and citizens only have to obey, and there is no concept of civil rights.Because citizens lack the concept of the rule of law, they do not know that legal provisions may not only be a tool to protect civil liberties, but may also be a way to violate civil rights.When encountering discriminatory laws, the public lacks the awareness of "non-discrimination", but accepts them as they are ordered.Invisibly, a country ruled by law becomes a country ruled by men.Since people are indifferent to discriminatory laws and allow discrimination to be practiced on a large scale and for a long time, they will naturally become insensitive to discrimination itself over time.

So what exactly is discrimination?Citizens should enjoy equal civil rights, and discrimination is the difference in rights. Looking back at history, we have encountered too much discrimination in our lives.The difference between urban and rural areas in national laws and regulations is the most common.For decades, our country did not allow farmers to go to cities to make a living.As citizens, it is an "honorable act" for urbanites to go to the countryside, and it is "blind flow" for farmers to go to the city. The police have the right to arrest them and send them back to their hometowns.People in the city can get food coupons to buy food, but farmers who grow food have no right to buy food.

Urban residents have all the privileges of urban hukou, farmers do not have any of these rights. People turn a blind eye to these discriminations.The simplest example is that the Ministry of Education has recently revised the "Regulations on the Administration of College Students", and has just abolished the rule that "college students quit school when they get married".Before this, I have never heard a law teacher tell students that your marriage rights have been violated.Not a single law student filed a lawsuit to fight for their most basic civil rights because of marriage discrimination.These teachers and students are legal experts today and in the future. They reacted to discrimination in such a way that we can deduce how weak the awareness of discrimination among ordinary people is.

Discrimination is still prevalent even today.For example, the admission scores for higher education are tilted towards big cities with strong learning conditions, which is discrimination against students from rural areas and remote areas.Another example is the "Henan nationality incident", the police station's offer of rewards to solve the case is treating them differently.According to the logic of the slogan, crimes committed by non-Henan residents are not included in the search for crackdown. 2. Not all discrimination is discrimination in the legal sense However, discrimination is judged in a legal sense.It is not as simple as generally imagined.

In the United States, one of the most famous discriminations in history is probably the racial discrimination in several southern states of the United States.As a country ruled by law, why has the United States allowed it to exist for a long time, and why has it had no way to deal with it for a long time?It was these southern states that exploited a loophole of "equality".In the "Declaration of Independence" of the United States, it once expressed the idea that if the two nations cannot get along well together, they can live their own lives on an "equal and separate" basis, which led to American independence. basis.Therefore, the whites in the southern United States later proposed that they belonged to different races from the blacks, and they could live "equally and separately".Therefore, some bills of racial segregation in the South stipulated that blacks in the south could not use public facilities of whites, but also stipulated that whites were not allowed to use public facilities of blacks, in order to show "equality" and "not discrimination".It was not until the 1960s that the U.S. Supreme Court broke through the legal trap of "superficial equality, but factual inequality" from the perspective of "the psychological impact of educational segregation on children".

There are also some traditional and community township rules and regulations.For example, in the United States today, there are still many apartments with a certain degree of autonomy.When a new resident comes in, it has to be approved by a committee composed of old residents, not because I have money to buy a house and rent a house.This small community has a certain degree of entitlement to whoever it wants.In addition, employers hire workers. In principle, employers have the right to formulate certain requirements and have the right to hire or not to hire.Generally speaking, asking for Zhang San and not Li Si does not constitute discrimination.

Therefore, what kind of differential treatment constitutes discrimination in the legal sense, is it the differential treatment of civil rights, or it needs to be defined by a series of regulations. When necessary, the highest judicial institution needs to compare the constitution and make an interpretation.For example, after the promulgation of the Civil Rights Act in the 1960s in the United States, it has successively stipulated that there should be no discrimination against race, skin color, and country of origin, and that employees should not be discriminated against against age, gender, and disability.In other words, when selling a house and renting a house, you can have certain requirements for the tenants, but you cannot say no to black people.Employers are not allowed to publish job advertisements requiring "under the age of thirty-five", which involves age discrimination.

Even so, defining discrimination is not a fully resolved problem in the United States.For example, a few years ago, a warehouse manager was fired by his employer because he weighed more than 300 pounds.Of course, the employer has his reasons. Being overweight may affect work efficiency.The employee took his employer to court for weight discrimination and won.It is expected that similar new issues involving discrimination will continue to be raised. 3. Claims in civil litigation Where there are specific regulations, the situation is simpler.For example, there is the Fair Employment Commission in the United States. Employment-related discrimination can be complained, evidence provided, and employers punished according to regulations.Civil lawsuits can also be claimed, but civil lawsuits have their own characteristics.

In this "Henan case", many experts are looking for evidence for the plaintiff.There are also many people who believe that whether there are relevant laws and regulations is the key to winning the lawsuit.In fact, the plaintiff filed a civil lawsuit, and a civil lawsuit is a "claim" for injury.For example, a person accidentally falls from upstairs and hurts a pedestrian. There is no law that stipulates that a person is not allowed to accidentally fall from a building. The former's behavior is not illegal, and the latter can still claim civil compensation. Claims do not necessarily involve money, and asking for an apology is also a claim, but it must be proven that the plaintiff has been personally injured and that the responsibility lies with the defendant.Therefore, it is not the first priority to prove whether the defendant discriminated against.Because even if it is proved that the defendant discriminated against, it does not prove that his actions caused the defendant personal injury worthy of compensation.

Just because civil claims do not need to be based on laws and regulations, but only need to prove injuries, it may happen from time to time in life. Therefore, the requirements for proof of injuries must be very high, otherwise the claims will flood and the society will not be able to deal with it.For example, in the case of Henan nationality, the plaintiff did not actually seek compensation in money, but if we assume that the plaintiff seeks compensation of 100 yuan per person, the amount seems to be very limited, and it may not be difficult to prove "discrimination".However, if we look at the plaintiff's reaction of "anger, anger, and sadness" after seeing it, we can easily judge that it is a kind of "injury" that can be claimed. Looking at it in isolation, the amount of compensation of 100 yuan is also very reasonable.However, 100 million Henan people will actually have such a reaction, and they can follow up to seek compensation, which is 10 billion yuan.

4. Anti-discrimination must start at the government level The idea that people discriminate is a natural occurrence.Anti-discrimination is a rational reflection after reaching a certain level of civilization. A person who has been robbed by blacks several times will naturally think that blacks have criminal tendencies.A person who sees poor people swearing and fighting repeatedly will think that poor people are barbaric.A person who is always bullied by the rich will think that being rich is not benevolent is a universal law.In the United States, it is through long-term school education that people form such a civilized and rational attitude: I do not judge a person by his skin color, race, wealth, region and religion, but by his own performance. he.Nor does it expand the performance of one or several people into a judgment on the entire race or group. The role of such education in the United States is very obvious.Although it takes a long time to work hard, it must be done continuously.Before that, however, it is government statutes that cannot legalize discrimination in the first place.The people must see that if the rights of others can be deprived, their own rights cannot be preserved, the rights of farmers can be legally violated, and the rights of urban residents are also in jeopardy.Because, as long as there is a discrimination statute, it recognizes that discrimination is legal.Then, the next discrimination act is just to change the target of discrimination.Everyone can be legally discriminated against and lose some of their civil rights. The Henan incident is one of the signs of the awakening of civic consciousness.