Griggs v. Duke Power Co.

Last updated

Griggs v. Duke Power Co.
Seal of the United States Supreme Court.svg
Supreme Court of the United States
Argued December 14, 1970
Decided March 8, 1971
Full case nameGriggs et al. v. Duke Power Co.
Citations401 U.S. 424 ( more )
91 S. Ct. 849; 28 L. Ed. 2d 158; 1971 U.S. LEXIS 134
Case history
PriorReversed in part, 420 F.2d 1225 (4th Cir. 1970). Certiorari to the United States Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit, granted.
Holding
Broad aptitude tests used in hiring practices that disparately impact ethnic minorities must be reasonably related to the job.
Court membership
Chief Justice
Warren E. Burger
Associate Justices
Hugo Black  · William O. Douglas
John M. Harlan II  · William J. Brennan Jr.
Potter Stewart  · Byron White
Thurgood Marshall  · Harry Blackmun
Case opinion
MajorityBurger, joined by unanimous
Brennan took no part in the consideration or decision of the case.
Laws applied
Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964

Griggs v. Duke Power Co., 401 U.S. 424 (1971), was a court case argued before the Supreme Court of the United States on December 14, 1970. It concerned employment discrimination and the disparate impact theory, and was decided on March 8, 1971. [1] It is generally considered the first case of its type. [2]

Contents

The Supreme Court ruled that the company's employment requirements did not pertain to applicants' ability to perform the job, and so were unintentionally discriminating against black employees. The judgment famously held that "Congress has now provided that tests or criteria for employment or promotion may not provide equality of opportunity merely in the sense of the fabled offer of milk to the stork and the fox." [2]

Facts

In the 1950s, Duke Power's Dan River Steam Station in North Carolina had a policy restricting black employees to its "Labor" department, where the highest-paying position paid less than the lowest-paying position in the four other departments. In 1955, the company added the requirement of a high school diploma for employment in any department other than Labor, and offered to pay two-thirds of the high-school training tuition for employees without a diploma. [3]

On July 2, 1965, the day the Civil Rights Act of 1964 took effect, Duke Power added two employment tests, which would allow employees without high-school diplomas to transfer to higher-paying departments. The Bennett Mechanical Comprehension Test was a test of mechanical aptitude, and the Wonderlic Cognitive Ability Test was an IQ test measuring general intelligence.

Whites were almost ten times more likely than blacks to meet these new employment and transfer requirements. According to the 1960 Census, while 34% of white males in North Carolina had high-school diplomas, only 18% of blacks did. The disparities of aptitude tests were far greater; with the cutoffs set at the median for high-school graduates, 58% of whites passed, compared to 6% of blacks. [4]

Judgment

The Supreme Court ruled that under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, if such tests disparately impact ethnic minority groups, businesses must demonstrate that such tests are "reasonably related" to the job for which the test is required. Because Title VII was passed pursuant to Congress's power under the Commerce Clause of the Constitution, the disparate impact test later articulated by the Supreme Court in Washington v. Davis , 426 US 229 (1976) is inapplicable. (The Washington v. Davis test for disparate impact is used in constitutional equal protection clause cases, while Title VII's prohibition on disparate impact is a statutory mandate.)

As such, Title VII of the Civil Rights Act prohibits employment tests (when used as a decisive factor in employment decisions) that are not a "reasonable measure of job performance," regardless of the absence of actual intent to discriminate. Since the aptitude tests involved, and the high school diploma requirement, were broad-based and not directly related to the jobs performed, Duke Power's employee transfer procedure was found by the Court to be in violation of the Act.

Chief Justice Burger wrote the majority opinion. [5]

Chief Justice Burger Warren e burger photo.jpeg
Chief Justice Burger

The Court of Appeals' opinion, and the partial dissent, agreed that, on the record in the present case, "whites register far better on the Company's alternative requirements" than Negroes. This consequence would appear to be directly traceable to race. Basic intelligence must have the means of articulation to manifest itself fairly in a testing process. Because they are Negroes, petitioners have long received inferior education in segregated schools, and this Court expressly recognized these differences in Gaston County v. United States , 395 U.S. 285 (1969). There, because of the inferior education received by Negroes in North Carolina, this Court barred the institution of a literacy test for voter registration on the ground that the test would abridge the right to vote indirectly on account of race. Congress did not intend by Title VII, however, to guarantee a job to every person regardless of qualifications. In short, the Act does not command that any person be hired simply because he was formerly the subject of discrimination, or because he is a member of a minority group. Discriminatory preference for any group, minority or majority, is precisely and only what Congress has proscribed. What is required by Congress is the removal of artificial, arbitrary, and unnecessary barriers to employment when the barriers operate invidiously to discriminate on the basis of racial or other impermissible classification.

Congress has now provided that tests or criteria for employment or promotion may not provide equality of opportunity merely in the sense of the fabled offer of milk to the stork and the fox. On the contrary, Congress has now required that the posture and condition of the job seeker be taken into account. It has—to resort again to the fable—provided that the vessel in which the milk is proffered be one all seekers can use. The Act proscribes not only overt discrimination, but also practices that are fair in form, but discriminatory in operation. The touchstone is business necessity. If an employment practice which operates to exclude Negroes cannot be shown to be related to job performance, the practice is prohibited.

On the record before us, neither the high school completion requirement nor the general intelligence test is shown to bear a demonstrable relationship to successful performance of the jobs for which it was used. Both were adopted, as the Court of Appeals noted, without meaningful study of their relationship to job performance ability. Rather, a vice-president of the Company testified, the requirements were instituted on the Company's judgment that they generally would improve the overall quality of the workforce.

The evidence, however, shows that employees who have not completed high school or taken the tests have continued to perform satisfactorily, and make progress in departments for which the high school and test criteria are now used. [6] The promotion record of present employees who would not be able to meet the new criteria thus suggests the possibility that the requirements may not be needed even for the limited purpose of preserving the avowed policy of advancement within the Company. In the context of this case, it is unnecessary to reach the question whether testing requirements that take into account capability for the next succeeding position or related future promotion might be utilized upon a showing that such long-range requirements fulfill a genuine business need. In the present case, the Company has made no such showing.

The Court of Appeals held that the Company had adopted the diploma and test requirements without any "intention to discriminate against Negro employees." 420 F.2d at 1232. We do not suggest that either the District Court or the Court of Appeals erred in examining the employer's intent; but good 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.

The Company's lack of discriminatory intent is suggested by special efforts to help the undereducated employees through Company financing of two-thirds the cost of tuition for high school training. But Congress directed the thrust of the Act to the consequences of employment practices, not simply the motivation. More than that, Congress has placed on the employer the burden of showing that any given requirement must have a manifest relationship to the employment in question.

The facts of this case demonstrate the inadequacy of broad and general testing devices, as well as the infirmity of using diplomas or degrees as fixed measures of capability. History is filled with examples of men and women who rendered highly effective performance without the conventional badges of accomplishment in terms of certificates, diplomas, or degrees. Diplomas and tests are useful servants, but Congress has mandated the common sense proposition that they are not to become masters of reality.

Significance

Griggs v. Duke Power Co. also held that the employer had the burden of producing and proving the business necessity of a test. However, in Wards Cove Packing Co. v. Atonio (1989), [7] the Court reduced the employer's (Wards Cove Packing Company) burden to producing only evidence of business justification. In 1991, the Civil Rights Act was amended to overturn that portion of the Wards Cove decision—although legislators included language designed to exempt the Wards Cove company itself. [8]

David Frum writes that Griggs redefined discrimination from meaning unequal treatment to meaning failure to make special allowances for the historically-imposed circumstances of protected groups. [9]

Although private employers with 15 or more employees are subject to Title VII of the Civil Rights Act, it was held in Washington v. Davis (1976) that the disparate impact doctrine does not apply to the equal protection requirement of the Fifth and Fourteenth Amendments. Thus, lawsuits against public employers may be barred by sovereign immunity.

See also

Notes

  1. ↑ Griggs v. Duke Power Co., 401 U.S. 424 (1971). PD-icon.svg This article incorporates public domain material from this U.S government document.
  2. 1 2 Christa Tobler (July 5, 2005). Indirect discrimination: a case study into the development of the legal concept of indirect discrimination under EC law. Intersentia nv. p. 515. ISBN   90-5095-458-8.
  3. ↑ Perry Alan Zirkel; Sharon Nalbone Richardson; Steven Selig Goldberg (2001). A Digest of Supreme Court Decisions affecting Education . Phi Delta Kappa International. pp.  326. ISBN   0-87367-835-4.
  4. ↑ 420 F.2d 1225, 1239 n. 6. citing U.S. Bureau of the Census, U.S. Census of Population: 1960, Vol. 1, Characteristics of the Population, pt. 35, Table 47; and Decision of EEOC, CCH Empl. Prac. Guide, ¶ 17,304.53 (December 2, 1966). See also Decision of EEOC 70-552, CCH Empl. Prac. Guide, ¶ 6139 (February 19, 1970).
  5. ↑ 401 U.S. at 430-434.
  6. ↑ For example, between July 2, 1965, and November 14, 1966, the percentage of white employees who were promoted but who were not high school graduates was nearly identical to the percentage of nongraduates in the entire white workforce.
  7. ↑ Wards Cove Packing Co. v. Atonio , 490 U.S. 642, 657 (1989).
  8. ↑ Selmi, Michael (May 5, 2011). "The Supreme Court's Surprising and Strategic Response to the Civil Rights Act of 1991". Wake Forest Law Review; George Washington University Law School, Legal Studies Research Paper Series; George Washington University Law School, Public Law & Legal Theory Research Paper Series. Rochester, NY. SSRN   1832753.
  9. ↑ Frum, David (2000). How We Got Here: The '70s . New York, New York: Basic Books. pp.  242–243. ISBN   0-465-04195-7.

Related Research Articles

Board of Trustees of the University of Alabama v. Garrett, 531 U.S. 356 (2001), was a United States Supreme Court case about Congress's enforcement powers under the Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution. The Supreme Court decided that Title I of the Americans with Disabilities Act was unconstitutional, insofar as it allowed states to be sued by private citizens for money damages.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">United States labor law</span> US laws on fair pay and conditions, unions, democracy, equality and security at work

United States labor law sets the rights and duties for employees, labor unions, and employers in the US. Labor law's basic aim is to remedy the "inequality of bargaining power" between employees and employers, especially employers "organized in the corporate or other forms of ownership association". Over the 20th century, federal law created minimum social and economic rights, and encouraged state laws to go beyond the minimum to favor employees. The Fair Labor Standards Act of 1938 requires a federal minimum wage, currently $7.25 but higher in 29 states and D.C., and discourages working weeks over 40 hours through time-and-a-half overtime pay. There are no federal laws, and few state laws, requiring paid holidays or paid family leave. The Family and Medical Leave Act of 1993 creates a limited right to 12 weeks of unpaid leave in larger employers. There is no automatic right to an occupational pension beyond federally guaranteed Social Security, but the Employee Retirement Income Security Act of 1974 requires standards of prudent management and good governance if employers agree to provide pensions, health plans or other benefits. The Occupational Safety and Health Act of 1970 requires employees have a safe system of work.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Civil Rights Act of 1991</span>

The Civil Rights Act of 1991 is a United States labor law, passed in response to United States Supreme Court decisions that limited the rights of employees who had sued their employers for discrimination. The Act represented the first effort since the passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 to modify some of the basic procedural and substantive rights provided by federal law in employment discrimination cases. It provided the right to trial by jury on discrimination claims and introduced the possibility of emotional distress damages and limited the amount that a jury could award. It added provisions to Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 protections expanding the rights of women to sue and collect compensatory and punitive damages for sexual discrimination or harassment.

A large body of research indicates that IQ and similar measures vary between individuals and between certain groups, and that they correlate with socially important outcomes such as educational achievement, employment, crime, poverty and socioeconomic status.

Washington v. Davis, 426 U.S. 229 (1976), was a United States Supreme Court case that established that laws that have a racially discriminatory effect but were not adopted to advance a racially discriminatory purpose are valid under the U.S. Constitution.

Disparate impact in the law of the United States refers to practices in employment, housing, and other areas that adversely affect one group of people of a protected characteristic more than another, even though rules applied by employers or landlords are formally neutral. Although the protected classes vary by statute, most federal civil rights laws consider race, color, religion, national origin, and sex to be protected characteristics, and some laws include disability status and other traits as well.

Wards Cove Packing Co. v. Atonio, 490 U.S. 642 (1989), was a court case concerning employment discrimination, argued before the United States Supreme Court on January 18, 1989, and decided on June 5, 1989.

United Steelworkers of America v. Weber, 443 U.S. 193 (1979), was a case regarding affirmative action in which the United States Supreme Court held that Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which prohibits racial discrimination by private employers, does not condemn all private, voluntary, race-conscious affirmative action plans. The Court's decision reversed lower courts' rulings in favor of Brian Weber whose lawsuit beginning in 1974 challenged his employer's hiring practices.

McDonnell Douglas Corp. v. Green, 411 U.S. 792 (1973), is a US employment law case by the United States Supreme Court regarding the burdens and nature of proof in proving a Title VII case and the order in which plaintiffs and defendants present proof. It was the seminal case in the McDonnell Douglas burden-shifting framework.

Employment testing is the practice of administering written, oral, or other tests as a means of determining the suitability or desirability of a job applicant. The premise is that if scores on a test correlate with job performance, then it is economically useful for the employer to select employees based on scores from that test.

Ricci v. DeStefano, 557 U.S. 557 (2009), is a United States labor law case of the United States Supreme Court on unlawful discrimination through disparate impact under the Civil Rights Act of 1964.

Watson v. Fort Worth Bank & Trust, 487 U.S. 977 (1988), is a United States Supreme Court case on United States labor law, concerning proof of disparate treatment under the Civil Rights Act of 1964.

Disparate treatment is one kind of unlawful discrimination in US labor law. In the United States, it means unequal behavior toward someone because of a protected characteristic under Title VII of the United States Civil Rights Act. This contrasts with disparate impact, where an employer applies a neutral rule that treats everyone equally in form, but has a disadvantageous effect on some people of a protected characteristic compared to others.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Dan River Steam Station</span>

The Dan River Steam Station is a power plant in Eden, North Carolina, owned by Duke Energy. The plant comprises three natural gas-fueled combustion turbines, which began operation in 1968.), and two natural gas-fueled combined cycle turbines are planned for the near future. A coal-fired electrical power plant at the site ceased operation in 2012.

A business necessity is a legal term for a legitimate business purpose that justifies an employment decision as effective and needed to optimally achieve the organization's goals and ensure that operations run safely and efficiently. This is often presented as a defense of an employment decision that is questioned because it was found to cause disparate impact.

Young v. United Parcel Service, 575 U.S. 206 (2015), is a United States Supreme Court case that the Court evaluated the requirements for bringing a disparate treatment claim under the Pregnancy Discrimination Act. In a 6–3 decision, the Court held that to bring such a claim, a pregnant employee must show that their employer refused to provide accommodations and that the employer later provided accommodations to other employees with similar restrictions. The Court then remanded the case to the United States Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit to determine whether the employer engaged in discrimination under this new test.

Corporation of Presiding Bishop v. Amos, 483 U.S. 327 (1987), is a United States Supreme Court case in which the court decided that the exemption of religious organizations from the prohibition of religious discrimination in employment in Title VII of the Civil Rights Act is constitutional. Appellee Arthur Frank Mayson worked for 16 years in an organization operated by the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. He was terminated from employment when he "failed to qualify for a temple recommend, that is, a certificate that he is a member of the Church and eligible to attend its temples." He filed suit in district court, arguing that his firing violated discrimination on the basis of religion in Title VII of the Civil Rights Act. The district court agreed. The case was appealed directly to the Supreme Court. The Supreme Court reversed, holding that Title VII's exemption of religious organizations from the prohibition on religious discrimination, even in secular activities, did not violate the First Amendment.

Bostock v. Clayton County, 590 U.S. ___ (2020), is a landmark United States Supreme Court civil rights decision in which the Court held that Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 protects employees against discrimination because of sexuality or gender identity.

Smith v. City of Jackson, 544 U.S. 228 (2005), was a case decided by the Supreme Court of the United States on March 30, 2005. It concerned the Age Discrimination in Employment Act of 1967 (ADEA) and the disparate impact theory. The Court held that although the theory of disparate impact set forth in Griggs v. Duke Power Co., 401 U.S. 424 (1971) is also applicable under the ADEA, the ADEA is narrower as it permits “otherwise prohibited” actions “where the differentiation is based on reasonable factors other than age.”

Albemarle Paper Co. v. Moody, 422 US 405 (1975), is a United States Supreme Court case in which the court held that Title VII disparate impact plaintiffs do not need to prove bad faith to be entitled to backpay. It also expanded on the holding from Griggs v. Duke Power that employment tests must be sufficiently job-related.

References

This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.