Disparate Impact & the Civil Rights Act of 1991

This paper will first discuss the disparate impact theory and the respective burdens of the plaintiff and defendant under this theory as it was articulated up until Wards Cove v. Antonio.1 It will then discuss the impact of the Civil Rights Act of 19912 upon future disparate impact cases and public policy.

The disparate impact theory was first articulated by, the Supreme Court in 1971 in Griggs v. Duke Power Co.3 In this case, job applicants were required to take a general intelligence test and produce a high school diploma, the effect being to disadvantage black applicants. The Court said that Title VII of the 1964 Civil Rights Act prohibited practices which are neutral in form but discriminatory in operation unless they are manifestly related to job capability.4 Employment selection procedures which, therefore, create an imbalance in the makeup of the defendant's workforce violate Title VII even though there may have been absolutely no intent to discriminate in adopting the procedures. In Griggs the court established the basic test for disparate impact which was used until Ward's Cove.5 The plaintiffs must first establish a prima facie case by showing that the defendant employer's hiring or promotion practices have discriminated against minorities protected by Title VII, resulting in the underrepresentation of such minorities in the job categories at issue. The defendant employer may then rebut this prima facie c

. . .
e involved; in such cases, the defendant employer may be held to a lower standard of scrutiny. The 10th Circuit, in a case involving college degree requirements for airline pilots, stated that "when the job clearly requires a high degree of skill and the economic and human risks involved in hiring an unqualified applicant are great, the employer bears a correspondingly lighter burden to show that his employment criteria are job-related ...."25 Initially applied only in cases involving pilots and long-haul truck drivers;26 this rule was later expanded to include police officers since their jobs combine professionalism, public risk, and responsibility with skills which are hard to define, test for, or quantify.27 For the most part, employers have been unsuccessful in meeting the higher standard. In Albemarle, the defendant produced a validation study which ranked employees' abilities by consulting their supervisors and then compared the rankings to the intelligence test scores at issue. Since the rankings in the study correlated with the test scores the defendant argued that the tests had met the job-relatedness standard set by Griggs. The court disagreed, stating that the results were an "odd patchwork," the questions put to
. . .

Some common words found in the essay are:
Wards Cove, Appellate Courts, Rights Act, Court Appeals, Title VII, Lines Inc, Court Griggs, Dothard Court, Authority Beazer, Co Antonio, disparate impact, business necessity, prima facie, rights act, civil rights act, civil rights, title vii, wards cove, causal connection, plaintiff identify, employment practice, disparate impact theory, york city transit, beazer 440 568, plaintiff identify specific,
Approximate Word count = 2303
Approximate Pages = 9 (250 words per page)

More Essays on Disparate Impact & the Civil Rights Act of 1991