We shall refer to this as reverse age discrimination. The plan extended early retirement benefits to workers who were at least 50 years or older with 10 years of service, and to workers 55 years or older with terms of service that totaled 85 when added to the applicant's age. There were a number of factors which presuaded the Seventh Circuit. First was the fact that everyone gets older. Unlike race or sex, where distinctions arise at birth and do not change, age is not immutable.
All persons have the potential to grow older and into the protected age group.
Furthermore, the court found nothing to even suggest that Congress deemed age and youth to be equal in the sense that the races and sexes are considered to be equal. To read that statute as prohibiting reverse age discrimination would make little if any sense because the protected class would be limited to persons who are 40 or older. Additionally, the court was concerned about waves of reverse dicrimination claims attacking benefits to older individuals. More specifically, they were unwilling to open the floodgates to attacks on every retirement plan . . . . There are many benefits in this country which are available only to those who have reached a certain age.