Really, I'm not a lawyer. This came about on a Facebook post by Gloria Purvis:
It has to do with this press release from the DOJ. Again, I'm no lawyer, but something about 'neutral on the face but discriminatory in effect' strikes me as, well, not clear. So if anyone does understand this sort of thing, I'm all ears.
That's basically what "disparate impact" is all about.
ReplyDeleteLet's take a hypothetical example. Say we had a college which had a test. If you scored 90% or higher on the test, you got admitted.
This is an "on the face neutral" standard. As far as anyone can see and tell, it all seems totally fair. But then what if people note that of everyone taking the test and getting 90% on it - of the students admitted - we have 60% Asians and Jews, 30% white people, and 10% blacks. That is what they mean is that it's "discriminatory in effect." That is how they measure and think about this stuff.
Gloria et al figure out a measurement value for what they perceive would be the "fair" result of a non-discriminatory practice, and then anything they find which does not have that "fair" result must therefore be discriminatory. That is the background of what she is saying.