Speaker Christopher Kleps, a professor at Ohio State University, discussed the ambiguity of employment discrimination law in front of students and faculty on Feb. 10. The event was the first of the Law and Society Speaker Series.

“Employment discrimination law, as written, is inherently ambiguous,” Kleps said.

According to Kleps, employment discrimination law “leaves a lot of room for judicial discretion” and it is often up to a judge’s perception of a case in whether or not discrimination took place. The premise of his talk started with legal constructionism, which is the legal approach he uses in his research.

“The law itself is socially constructed and constructed by specific parties in specific contexts,” he said, explaining that law should be looked at in terms of