Not just our organizations but our community is impoverished if we discriminate. Research has shown that business innovation and economic development is enhanced by a community's diversity. A region's high-tech business success, for example, is associated with having many foreign-born residents, artists, writers and households headed by same-sex partners. These individuals constitute a creative class, a group that brings vibrancy and new ideas to a community.

We must face the facts. We do discriminate — though often inadvertently. And we cause great harm to others, to ourselves and to our communities. But we can fight back through attention, diligence and, most importantly, through careful and just social policies. In particular, legislation that prohibits discrimination against people simply because they are members of social or demographic categories protects potentially victimized individuals and positively affects all of us.

Changes in law create changes in attitudes. They make discriminatory practices not just illegal or costly but, eventually, terribly misguided. The Utah Legislature should use its 2008 session to address problems of discrimination, expand our community's commitment to fairness and to communicate our values to all who can contribute to our social and economic success. Doing so serves all the people of Utah.

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Harris Sondak is professor of business administration in the David Eccles School of Business at the University of Utah.