Describe the difference between individual and institutional discrimination

 Individual discrimination is when a person is making a conscious choice to discriminate whereas Institutional discrimination is when institutions practice discriminatory policies that affect a whole groups of individuals.

Even though Age Discrimination in Employment Act (ADEA) has been in place for over some thirty-five (35) years now, age discrimination while employed remains widespread. Discriminating against the elderly is based on age and not on individual merit of the individual. While discrimination usually is accompanied by a negative attitude towards an individual it can also refer to someone being overly nice or generous and have extreme kindness towards the age group because of their age. One the other side of this you can have managers who really aren’t looking to discriminate but feel a little on edge because the candidate is older and may not have as long with the company as a younger candidate would. Some managers find older candidates less desirable.

A sixty-six-year-old man from Los Angeles was awarded $26 million in an age discrimination lawsuit against Staples on February 26, 2014. Mr. Nickel alleged that for nine years he was teased and berated by his supervisor and would be referred to as “old coot” and “old goat” and was the butt of all jokes regularly during staff meetings. Even though he has nine (9) performance reviews that were all positive, Mr. Nickel was asked to resign. Mr. Nickel alleged that because he was on Corporate Express pay scale he made more than the Staples pay scale and Staples wanted to let him go and hire someone at the lower scale. Mr. Nickel was asked to resign and the berating became worse. He then was falsely accused of a series of accusations and the level of berating began to increase. Mr. Nickel was fired in 2011. Mr. Nickel filed in the Los Angeles Superior Court and was awarded $3.2 million in compensatory damages and more than $22.8 million in punitive damages.