SMU Law Review
ORCID (Links to author’s additional scholarship at ORCID.org)
Abstract
In today’s digital workplace, employment decisions are increasingly shaped by artificial intelligence (AI) and social media platforms, embedding societal biases into managerial practices and undermining traditional legal safeguards. This Article introduces the concept of crowd discrimination, which arises when biases originating from customers, algorithms, or online communities influence employment outcomes, thus threatening workers’ right to equality. Specifically, it argues that platform-based work, AI-driven management tools, and online shaming systematically transform crowd biases into employment decisions regarding hiring, dismissal, wages, and working conditions.
Crowd discrimination is not incidental. It results from both technological design and the limitations of existing laws, which fail to adequately address these new discriminatory practices. Employers utilize AI and platform infrastructures, whether intentionally or not, to distance their decisions from discriminatory effects, thereby evading legal accountability. Meanwhile, platform and AI companies shape employment conditions through their technologies without recognized legal responsibility, complicating employers’ obligations under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act and obscuring the sources of discrimination.
To address these challenges, the Article calls for new legal duties to protect workplace equality. It proposes procedural protections, enabling workers to enforce equality rights, particularly in cases mediated by AI systems and platforms. Further, it argues for imposing direct liability on platform and AI companies whose technologies facilitate discrimination, whether through embedding biased patterns into AI tools or allowing customer preferences to dictate employment outcomes. By adopting this broader legal approach, the Article offers a comprehensive framework to address the threats crowd discrimination poses to workplace equality.
Recommended Citation
Tammy Katsabian,
Crowd Discrimination in the Digital Workplace: How AI and Platforms Translate Public Bias into Employment Practices,
79
SMU L. Rev.
567
(2026)
