Does US anti-discrimination law really operate like "you have to serve the protected class whatever the consequences for unprotected ones?" European ones typically require both weak and strong classes be served equally, not in results, but in the manner and the matter.
> Does US anti-discrimination law really operate like "you have to serve the protected class whatever the consequences for unprotected ones?"
“Protected class” is something of a misleading piece of legal jargon; “class”, in it, means something closer to “axis of differentiation” than “group”. [0]
So, “black” is not a “protected class”, “race” is.
(This gets confusing because there is a related concept in Constitutional anti-discrimination jurisprudence of a suspect class, in which “class” does mean “group"; blacks are a suspect class—a group historically subject to discrimination, such that government actions which discriminate against them are subject to strict scrutiny—and whites are not, but both blacks and whites are protected by employment anti-discrimination law because race is a protected class.)
[0] There's a wrinkle in that “age over 40” is an asymetric “protected class” in employment anti-discrimination law.
I think you're confusing "weak and strong classes" with "protected and unprotected classes"
For example, national origin is a protected class and there was a case a few years ago where the EEOC got involved. It was a company owned by Indian-Americans(?) (might have been another nationality) who routinely turned down non-Indian-American job seekers (mostly whites) solely because they where non-Indian-American and they pretty much only hired other Indian-Americans and Indians. This was official policy.
So everyone's national origin is protected, no matter what it is. Everyone is in a protected class.
But say, people who have finger or face tattoos could be turned down for a job solely for having finger and face tattoos because people who have finger and face tattoos aren't a protected class.
Not sure what you mean by 'consequences' for the unprotected classes in this context, but the age discrimination case would only be valid if both the Over-40 candidate and Under-40 candidate were equally qualified, and the Over-40 candidate was rejected solely because they are too close to retirement age.
Note that due to the letter of the EEO law, there is NOT actionable age discrimination if all candidates were over 40, and for example, the 60 year old was rejected in favor of a 41 year old for the same reason as above.
