The committee needed to redraft the application form.
The five members sat around the table reviewing the current document. It had been in use for some time, but recent changes in the law meant that this version was no longer appropriate. They needed to remove those sections that were unfairly biased against gender and race. They also needed to consider the fact that nothing should remain that would potentially discriminate against any applicant based on socioeconomic factors. With this in mind, they read through the categories, these being date of birth, educational requirements, graduation date, race inquiries, citizenship, criminal history, salary history, military discharge information, previous sick days used in employment, and social security number. Then they considered which of the categories of information applied and which didn’t. They spent the better part of the day working on it.
Finally, all sections of the original form that dealt with such things were removed. The outcome of this being a blank sheet of paper, except for the heading ‘Application Form’. After deciding that the heading was entirely appropriate, it was agreed that they leave it in.
Following a protracted period of discussion, based on the group’s agreement that the primary purpose of the form was to collect relevant and required information from the applicant, it was decided to place the following instruction beneath the title.
‘Please use this form to provide information that is both relevant and required’.