This seems to beg the question, how will the legal system now address issues of algorithmic bias?
Driven by the White House’s rejection of the disparate-impact legal theory of discrimination liability, as set out in Executive Order 14281, yesterday the Department of Justice issued a non-binding opinion to the EEOC arguing, for the first time, that the latter agency’s guidelines about disparate-impact liability under Title VII are unconstitutional. DOJ’s Office of Legal Counsel claims that the EEOC’s guidelines pressure employers to engage in racial discrimination and that, under those guidelines, employers could be held liable for unequal outcomes among different groups, without regard to the employer’s likely intent.
The disparate-impact theory of liability under Title VII was first applied by the U.S. Supreme Court in 1971 in Griggs v. Duke Power Co. There, the Court concluded that a power company used job criteria that disproportionately eliminated Black applicants but were not “significantly related to successful job performance” and did not advance the company’s asserted goal of facilitating promotions within the company. It held that the policy violated the statute, explaining that Title VII “proscribes not only overt discrimination but also practices that are fair in form, but discriminatory in operation.” In 1991, Congress amended Title VII, codifying this theory and laying out the burden-shifting framework that applied.
Executive order and Title VI. Last April,...
The Andhra Pradesh Congress Committee (APCC) on Saturday accused Union Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman of repeating what it termed “false claims” made earlier in Parliament during her public me...