discrimination

thumb|alt=See caption|An African-American man drinking from a Racial segregation in the United States|racially segregated water cooler marked "Colored", in [[Oklahoma City ]] Discrimination is the process of making unjustified distinctions between people based on the groups, classes, or other categories to which they belong or are perceived to belong, usually in a way that it deprives them of their legal or human rights. The group may be such as race, gender, age, class, religion, disability or sexual orientation. Discrimination typically leads to groups being unfairly treated on the basis of perceived statuses of characteristics, for example ethnic, racial, gender or religious categories. It involves depriving members of one group of opportunities or privileges that are available to members of another group.

Discriminatory traditions, policies, ideas, practices and laws exist in many countries and institutions in all parts of the world, including some, where such discrimination is generally decried. In some places, countervailing measures such as quotas have been used to redress the balance in favor of those who are believed to be current or past victims of discrimination. These attempts have often been met with controversy, and sometimes been called reverse discrimination.