Free Republic

The shadow of age bias in hiring, though, is long. Tens of thousands of workers say that even with the right qualifications for a job, they are repeatedly turned away because they are over 50, or even 40, and considered too old.

FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. — Defense lawyers in a major South Florida terror case want to make sure jurors never hear from witness Evan Kohlmann. The proposed government expert on al-Qaida is simply no expert, lawyers say. He has no Ph.D., no faculty position and no real-life experience in the Middle East. Plus there's the age thing. Kohlmann, who has testified five times for the government already, is just 27. He's been called the "Doogie Howser" of terrorism. One critic cracked that prosecutors have been using Kohlmann "since he was a zygote." Kohlmann has fought off such attacks before. The Fort...

In Silicon Valley these days, precious few jobs are available for high-tech workers. In the past two years, hundreds of companies have folded, and tens of thousands of employees have been laid off. Many of the job hunters who arrived in the late 1990s for the dot-com rush are gone. I'm a technical writer with more than 20 years of experience, and earlier this year, I was laid off for the second time in two years. As I began reviewing job openings in my field, I started by looking at companies I knew. I found one that was seeking a...