Disparate Impact Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 2000 words

Disparate Impact - Essay Example aving high school diploma on the city by following the disparate impact theory of liability to prove its business requirement – not just a ploy to single out certain groups of society from getting employment (Lazarus, 2001). The Supreme Court first described the disparate impact theory in 1971, in Griggs v. Duke Power Co., 401 U.S. 424, 431-2 (1971): Title VII. It â€Å"proscribes not only overt discrimination but also practices that are fair in form, but discriminatory in operation. The touchstone is business necessity. . . . [G]ood intent or absence of discriminatory intent does not redeem employment procedures or testing mechanisms that operate as built-in headwinds for minority groups and are unrelated to measuring job capability.† In 1989, the Supreme Court minimized the defendant’s burden of proving business necessity to a burden of producing proof of business requirement in the case of Wards Cove Packing Co. v. Antonio, 490 U.S. Later, the Civil Rights Act of 1991 annulled that part of the Wards Cove decision (HR Guide 2001). "Disparate impact" is a legal theory for proving unlawful employment discrimination. But in practice, â€Å"disparate treatment† theory is practiced. Disparate impact is a thought that some recruitment practices adversely impact a group or community of people than the others. In the example of US Supreme Court Title VII case on the issue of disparate impact, in a particular case of employing laborers, the applicants needed to be high school diploma holders. This condition weeded out more blacks than whites, although there was no such intention on the part of the employer to discriminate against blacks. But as a result of the condition, there was a disparate impact on a particular race (Runkel, 2006). According to the Supreme Court, if the employees raise such a concern, the responsibility of proving the usefulness of the high school diploma lies with the employer, having â€Å"a manifest relationship to the employment in question.†