Illegal discrimination. Illegal discrimination, also called disparate treatment, means that raters assign scores differentially to various employees based on factors that are not performance related, such as race, nationality, color, or ethnic and national origin. As a consequence of such ratings, some employees receive more training, feedback, or rewards, than others. This definition of illegal discrimination is given, for example, in the Race Relations Act of 1976 in the United Kingdom and in Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 in the United States. Illegal discrimination is usually referred to as disparate treatment because employees claim they were intentionally treated differently because of their sex, race, ethnicity, national origin, age, disability status, or other status protected under the law.