'The owner made a snap decision based on assumptions about disability'
Apr 30, 2025
“Employers should never make assumptions about an individual's ability to perform a job based on a disability - hiring decisions must be based on objective assessments and not stereotypes.”
So says Brooke Finkelstein, an employment lawyer and investigator at West Coast Workplace Law in Richmond, BC, after the British Columbia Human Rights Tribunal ruled that an employer and its owner discriminated against a deaf job applicant when they didn’t go through with a scheduled job interview.
Pure Luxe was a beauty salon in Vancouver. In early 2020, the salon advertised for a certified laser technician position, which involved using a laser as part of aesthetic treatment to improve the appearance of customers’ skin.
The worker, who is deaf, operated her own beauty clinic for a brief period of time, but it didn’t do well and she decided to look for a part-time job. She found that work at beauty salons was good for deaf people because they didn’t require much verbal communication with clients and technology such as text messaging helped with communication.
On Jan. 22, the owner of Pure Luxe was contacted by a vocational counsellor from a non-profit organization that was helping the worker find a job. The counsellor left a message for the owner saying that the worker was interested in the laser technician position and she was looking to develop her abilities as an esthetician....
Joo Hak-nyeon, formerly of the group The Boyz, has once again expressed his indignation over allegations of sexual transaction, claiming that there were unfair demands from his agency in the conte...