2 U.S. 926 We recommend using The Bottom Line Limitation to the Rule of Griggs v. Duke Power Company James P. Scanlan United States Equal Employment Opportunity Commission Follow this and additional works at: https://repository.law.umich.edu/mjlr Part of the Civil Rights and Discrimination Commons, Labor and Employment Law Commons, Despite From the time the high school requirement was instituted to the time of trial, however, white employees hired before the time of the high school education requirement continued to perform satisfactorily and achieve promotions in the "operating" departments. 11 Consider the Griggs v. Duke Power Co. case decided by the Supreme Court in 1971. 7247. These requirements were not directed at or intended to measure ability to learn to perform a particular job or category of jobs. 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. 7 Congress did not intend by Title VII, however, to guarantee a job to every person regardless of qualifications. Rec. Footnote 3 (1961). The Supreme Court’s decision in Griggs v. Duke Power Company, 401 U.S. 424 (1971), addressed the Title VII issues created by employer policies that are facially neutral, but which adversely impact employees on the basis of race, sex, or religion.   [ Prior to Title VII, black employees could not work in four of the five departments at Duke nor could they achieve the same wage as a white employee. By a unanimous decision, the Supreme Court held that the tests given by Duke Power were artificial and unnecessary and that the requirements for transfer had a disparate impact on blacks. However, the Court of Appeals denied relief to the Negro employees without a high school education or its equivalent who were hired into the Labor Department after institution of the educational requirement. This article incorporates public domain material from this U.S government document. Updates? The final amendment, which was acceptable to all sides, could hardly have required less of a job relation than the first. Under the Act, practices, procedures, or tests neutral on their face, and even neutral in terms of intent, cannot be maintained if they operate to "freeze" the status quo of prior discriminatory employment practices. Willie S. GRIGGS et al., Petitioners, v. DUKE POWER COMPANY. Griggs v. Duke Power Co., 401 U.S. 424, was a court case argued before the Supreme Court of the United States on December 14, 1970. If an employment practice which operates to exclude Negroes cannot be shown to be related to job performance, the practice is prohibited. ." The District Court had found that while the Company previously followed a policy of overt racial discrimination in a period prior to the Act, such conduct had ceased. Footnote 4 [401 Rec. But Congress directed the thrust of the Act to the consequences of employment practices, not simply the motivation. The most important case impacting employee testing is Griggs v. Duke Power, 401 US 424 (1971), in which the United States Supreme Court held that the employer, Duke Power, had established unlawful racially discriminatory criteria for employment and advancement, including testing and … Equal Educational Case: Griggs Vs. Duke Power Company. From the sum of the legislative history relevant in this case, the conclusion is inescapable that the EEOC's construction of 703 (h) to require that employment tests be job related comports with congressional intent. 420 F.2d, at 1232. 1, Characteristics of the Population, pt. Lawrence M. Cohen argued the cause for the Chamber of Commerce of the United States as amicus curiae urging affirmance. This method of analysis is consistent with the seminal Supreme Court decision about disparate impact discrimination, Griggs v. Duke Power Co., 401 U.S. 424 (1971). The Court of Appeals noted, however, that the District Court was correct in its conclusion that there was no showing of a racial purpose or invidious intent in the adoption of the high school diploma requirement or general intelligence test and that these standards had been applied fairly to whites and Negroes alike. The Court of Appeals reversed the District Court in part, rejecting the holding that residual discrimination arising from prior employment practices was insulated from remedial action. [401 (Emphasis added.). With him on the briefs were James M. Nabrit III, Norman C. Amaker, William L. Robinson, Conrad O. Pearson, Julius LeVonne Chambers, and Albert J. Rosenthal. U.S. 424, 436] After careful analysis a majority of that court concluded that a subjective test of the employer's intent should govern, particularly in a close case, and that in this case there was no showing of a discriminatory purpose in the adoption of the diploma and test requirements. The U.S. George W. Ferguson, Jr., argued the cause for respondent. Begin typing to search, use arrow keys to navigate, use enter to select. 12 The administrative interpretation of the The case was decided in favor of Griggs because _____. . A) Equal Pay Act of 1963 B) Civil Rights Act of 1866.   STRANGERS IN PARADISE: GRIGGS V. DUKE . Far from disparaging job qualifications as such, Congress has made such qualifications the controlling factor, so that race, religion, nationality, and sex become irrelevant. Google Chrome, [401 Findings on this score are not challenged. 5614-5616; Smathers, id., at 5999-6000; Holland, id., at 7012-7013; Hill, id., at 8447; Tower, id., at 9024; Talmadge, id., at 9025-9026; Fulbright, id., at 9599-9600; and Ellender, id., at 9600. Which legislation was responsible for the creation of the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission? Footnote 2 . 3. are now used. . amendment and have found it to be in accord with the intent and purpose of that title." tests should be validated for jobs similar to those for which they will be used). The Supreme Court had to decide whether it was legal for the Duke Power Company to use aptitude tests to restrict promotions and transfers within the company. What Congress has forbidden is giving these devices and mechanisms controlling force unless they are demonstrably a reasonable measure of job performance. Omissions? The background of the Griggs case began in the early 1970s, when African American workers at the Duke Power Company in North Carolina sued the company because of a rule that required employees who were transferring between different departments to have a high-school diploma or pass an intelligence test. EEOC General Counsel's Opinion Letter, 1 CCH Employment Prac. 110 Cong. Negro employees at respondent's generating plant brought this action, pursuant to Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, challenging respondent's requirement of a high school diploma or passing of intelligence tests as a condition of employment in or transfer to jobs at the plant. ." U.S. Bureau of the Census, U.S. Census of Population: 1960, Vol. ] In North Carolina, 1960 census statistics show that, while 34% of white males had completed high school, only 12% of Negro males had done so. The Court of Appeals reversed in part, rejecting the holding that residual discrimination arising from prior practices was insulated from remedial action, but agreed with the lower court that there was no showing of discriminatory purpose in the adoption of the diploma and test requirements. Discrimination could actually exist under the guise of compliance with the statute." [ The plaintiffs in the case, the employees, argued that those requirements did not measure a person’s ability to perform a particular job or category of jobs and were instead attempts to get around laws forbidding discrimination in the workplace. Footnote 10 . ] 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 work force. 380 [401 ] Section 703 (h) applies only to tests. The facts in Griggs involved a workplace with five Operating Departments, ranging from Labor at … See, e. g., United States v. City of Chicago, 400 U.S. 8 (1970); Udall v. On the contrary, Congress has now required that the posture and condition of the job-seeker be taken into account. GRIGGS v. DUKE POWER CO.(1971) No. [401 Certainly a reasonable interpretation of what the Senators meant, in light of the subsequent memorandum directed specifically at employer testing, was that nothing in the Act prevents employers from requiring that applicants be fit for the job. U.S. 424, 433]. [ Footnote 5 In Griggs v. Duke Power (1971), the Supreme Court ruled that, under Title VII of the 1964 Civil Rights Act, tests measuring intelligence could not be used in hiring and firing decisions.   [ 124. . Albemarle Paper Company v. Moody (1975): Clarified methods for using and validating tests in selection (i.e. Completion of high school alone continued to render employees eligible for transfer to the four desirable departments from which Negroes had been excluded if the incumbent had been employed prior to the time of the new requirement. U.S. 424, 429]. Decision of EEOC, CCH Empl. Duke Power Co. 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. In 1978, the EEOC adopted the Uniform Guidelines on Employee Selection Procedures or “UGESP” under Title VII. Equal Employment Opportunity Act of 1972, Pub. Part 1607. Footnote 8 The amendment was defeated and two days later Senator Tower offered a substitute amendment which was adopted verbatim and is now the testing provision of 703 (h). The judgment of the Court of Appeals is, as to that portion of the judgment appealed from, reversed.   Indeed, the very purpose of title VII is to promote hiring on the basis of job qualifications, rather than on the basis of race or color." See remarks of Senators Ervin, 110 Cong. The touchstone is business necessity. U.S. 424, 435] Wards Cove Packing Company v. Neither was directed or intended to measure the ability to learn to perform a particular job or category of jobs. The message of these Guidelines is the same as that of the Griggs case -- that discriminatory tests are impermissible unless shown, by professionally acceptable methods, to be U.S. 424, 437]. POWER . 3. Ability tests so utilized often decide who will be hired, transferred, or promoted for jobs ... color, religion, sex and national origin. these assurances, Senator Tower of Texas introduced an amendment authorizing "professionally developed ability tests." These guidelines demand that employers using tests have available "date demonstrating that the test is predictive of or significantly correlated with important elements of work behavior which comprise or are relevant to the job or jobs for which candidates are being evaluated." [ Proponents of Title VII opposed the amendment because, as written, it would permit an employer to give any test, "whether it was a good test or not, so long as it was professionally designed. quotation from an earlier Clark-Case interpretative memorandum addressed to the question of the constitutionality of Title VII. We granted the writ on these claims. It has - to resort again to the fable - provided that the vessel in which the milk is proffered be one all seekers can use. 420 F.2d 1225, 1239 n. 6. (1970); Udall v. Tallman, ] One member of that court disagreed with this aspect of the decision, maintaining, as do the petitioners in this Court, that Title VII prohibits the use of employment criteria that operate in a racially exclusionary fashion and do not measure skills or abilities necessary to performance of the jobs for which those criteria are used. A number of Senators feared that Title VII might produce a similar result. ] Senator Tower's original amendment provided in part that a test would be permissible "if . ... five months after charges had been filed with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. Speaking for the supporters of Title VII, Senator Humphrey, who had vigorously opposed the first amendment, endorsed the substitute amendment, stating: "Senators on both sides of the aisle who were deeply interested in title VII have examined the text of this It held that, absent such discriminatory purpose, use of the requirements was permitted, and rejected the claim that because a disproportionate number of Negroes was rendered ineligible for promotion, transfer, or employment, the requirements were unlawful unless shown to be job related. [401 The Company added a further requirement for new employees on July 2, 1965, the date on which Title VII became effective. It has no applicability to the high school diploma requirement. Let us know if you have suggestions to improve this article (requires login). Griggs vs. Duke Power Co. (1971) was a case that helped shape current labor laws after the implementation of Title VII. See, e. g., United States v. City of Chicago, [ [401 Willie S. GRIGGS et al., Petitioners, v. DUKE POWER COMPANY. The case was argued before the Supreme Court on December 14, 1970, and the court issued its ruling on March 8 of the following year. The touchstone is business necessity. 91 S.Ct.   The Court of Appeals also required that the seniority rights of those Negroes be measured on a plantwide, rather than a departmental, basis. 13492. Congress provided, in Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, for class actions for enforcement of provisions of the Act and this proceeding was brought by a group of incumbent Negro employees against Duke Power Company. U.S. 424, 426] Senators Case of New Jersey and Clark of Pennsylvania, comanagers of the bill on the Senate floor, issued a memorandum explaining that the proposed Title VII "expressly protects the employer's right to insist that any prospective applicant, Negro or white, must meet the applicable job qualifications. The District Court found that prior to July 2, 1965, the effective date of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, the 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. Duke Power, prior to the Act, had followed a policy of overt discrimination by confining those blacks hired to the labor department, in which the highest paying jobs Both were adopted, as the Court of Appeals noted, without meaningful study of their relationship to job-performance ability. Basic intelligence must have the means of articulation to manifest itself fairly in a testing process. Guide, § 17,304.53 (Dec. 2, 1966).   ] The Court of Appeals majority, in finding no requirement in Title VII that employment tests be job related, relied in part on a Firefox, or With him on the brief were Francis V. Lowden, Jr., Gerard C. Smetana, and Milton A. Smith. The plant was organized into five operating departments: (1) Labor, (2) Coal Handling, (3) Operations, (4) Maintenance, and (5) Laboratory and Test. United States Supreme Court. For a period, debate revolved around claims that the bill as proposed would prohibit all testing and force employers to hire unqualified persons simply because they were part of a group formerly subject to job discrimination. person be hired simply because he was formerly the subject of discrimination, or because he is a member of a minority group. It concerned employment discrimination and the adverse impact theory, and was decided on March 8, 1971. To qualify for placement in any but the Labor Department it became necessary to register satisfactory scores on two professionally prepared aptitude   [ U.S. 8 Griggs v. Duke Power Co. is an early and important case discussing the need to eradicate not only discriminatory treatment in the workplace, but also race-neutral polices that have a discriminatory impact. Argued December 14, 1970. Prac. Co., 414 U. S. 86, 414 U. S. 94 (1973). This consequence would appear to be directly traceable to race. While 703 (a) of the Act makes it an unlawful employment practice for an employer to limit, segregate, or classify employees to deprive them of employment opportunities or adversely to affect their status because of race, color, religion, sex, or national origin, 703 (h) authorizes the use of any professionally developed ability test, provided that it is not designed, intended, or used to discriminate. Rec. In Griggs v. Duke Power Company, Griggs sued the power company because it required coal handlers to be high school graduates. . U.S. 424, 435] Guide § 1220.20 (1967). 110 Cong. 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. 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. Act by the enforcing agency is entitled to great deference. Company openly discriminated on the basis of race in the hiring and assigning of employees at its Dan River plant. Corrections? On this basis, the Court of Appeals concluded there was no violation of the Act. § 2000e-2(k)(1)(A)(i); see also Griggs v. Duke Power Co., 401 U.S. 424 (1971). In its ruling, the Supreme Court held that employment tests must be “related to job performance.”. [401 It held that, in the absence of a discriminatory purpose, use of such requirements was permitted by the Act. ] The test standards are thus more stringent than the high school requirement, since they would screen out approximately half of all high school graduates. 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 work force. With him on the brief were William I. Rec. . 5 The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, having enforcement responsibility, has issued guidelines interpreting 703 (h) to permit only the use of job-related tests. Willie Griggs filed a class action, on behalf of several fellow African- American employees, against his employer Duke Power Company . This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply. At the time this action was instituted, the Company had 95 employees at the Dan River Station, 14 of whom were Negroes; 13 of these are petitioners here. Id., at 1607.4 (c). 6 This method of analysis is consistent with the seminal Supreme Court decisions about disparate impact discrimination, Griggs v. Duke Power Co., 401 U.S. 424 (1971). The administrative interpretation of the Act by the enforcing agency is entitled to great deference. U.S. 285 (1969). 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 "proscribes not only overt discrimination but also practices that are fair in form, but discriminatory in operation. Griggs v. Duke Power (1971): Tests were illegal when they resulted in adverse impact and were not job related. Diplomas and tests are useful servants, but Congress has mandated the commonsense proposition that they are not to become masters of reality. 849. 400 5662.) [401 U.S. 1 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. Transferees into a department usually began in the lowest position. In the earlier memorandum Clark and Case assured the Senate that employers were not to be prohibited from using tests that determine qualifications. U.S. 396 Griggs v. Duke Power Co., case in which the U.S. Supreme Court, in a unanimous decision on March 8, 1971, established the legal precedent for so-called “ disparate-impact ” lawsuits involving instances of racial discrimination. Griggs challenged Duke's \"inside\" transfer policy, requiring employees who want to work in all but the company's lowest paying Labor Department to register a minimum score on two separate aptitude tests in addition to having a high school education. . 367 In 1978, the EEOC adopted the Uniform Guidelines on Employee Selection Procedures or “UGESP” under Title VII. U.S. 424, 428] The Act proscribes not only overt discrimination but also practices that are fair in form, but discriminatory in operation. Similarly, with respect to standardized tests, the EEOC in one case found that use of a battery of tests, including the Wonderlic and Bennett tests used by the Company in the instant case, resulted in 58% of whites passing the tests, as compared with only 6% of the blacks. Prac. Congress has not commanded that the less qualified be preferred over the better qualified simply because of minority origins. ] The congressional discussion was prompted by the decision of a hearing examiner for the Illinois Fair Employment Commission in Myart v. Motorola Co. (The decision is reprinted at 110 Cong. Footnote 12 6 ] A Negro was first assigned to a job in an operating department in August 1966, five months after charges had been filed with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. Internet Explorer 11 is no longer supported. Griggs v. Duke Power Co., 401 U.S. 424 (1971). 10 ] EEOC Guidelines on Employment Testing Procedures, issued August 24, 1966, provide: "The Commission accordingly interprets `professionally developed ability test' to mean a test which fairly measures the knowledge or skills required by the particular job or class of jobs which the applicant seeks, or which fairly affords the employer a chance to measure the applicant's ability to perform a particular job or class of jobs. Jack Greenberg argued the cause for petitioners. If it is determined that a disparate impact exists, the focus then shifts to the employer to show that the challenged practice is “job related for the position in question and consistent with business necessity.” 42 U.S.C. Our editors will review what you’ve submitted and determine whether to revise the article. 395 . Griggs v. Duke Power Company (1971) was the Supreme Court case that established disparate impact discrimination. Griggs v. Duke Power Co., 401 U.S. 424 (1971) Griggs v. Duke Power Co. No. The workers argued that, because of the inferior segregated education available to blacks in North Carolina, a disproportionate number of African Americans were rendered ineligible for promotion, transfer, or employment. Supreme Court ; 401 U.S. 424. Footnote 7 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. In short, the Act does not command that any [ Rec. In 1955 the Company instituted a policy of requiring a high school education for initial assignment to any department except Labor, and for transfer from the Coal Handling to any "inside" department (Operations, Maintenance, or Laboratory). 9 The employee, a high school graduate who had begun in the Labor Department in 1953, was promoted to a job in the Coal Handling Department. 399 110 Cong. CO. AND THE CONCEPT OF EMPLOYMENT DISCRIMINATION . The ruling effectively forbids employers from using arbitrary tests—such as those for measuring IQ or literacy—to evaluate an employee or a potential employee, a practice that some companies at the time were using as a way to get around rules that forbid outright racial discrimination.   U.S. 424, 430] An employer may set his qualifications as high as he likes, he may test to determine which applicants have these qualifications, and he may hire, assign, and promote on the basis of test performance." In practical terms, EEOC’s policy forbids employers from using one hiring policy for women with small children and a different policy for males with children of a similar age. Reg. U.S. 424, 432] Copyright © 2020, Thomson Reuters. Adverse Impact does not mean that an individual in a majority group is given preference over a minority group. What Congress has commanded is that any tests used must measure the person for the job and not the person in the abstract. The EEOC position has been elaborated in the new Guidelines on Employee Selection Procedures, 29 CFR 1607, 35 Fed. The email address cannot be subscribed. 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 In the present case the Company has made no such showing. 35, Table 47. ^ Griggs v. Duke Power Co., 401 U.S. 424 (1971). in the case of any individual who is seeking employment with such employer, such test is designed to determine or predict whether such individual is suitable or trainable with respect to his employment in the particular business or enterprise involved . 110 Cong. The requisite scores used for both initial hiring and transfer approximated the national median for high school graduates. The District Court also concluded that Title VII was intended to be prospective only and, consequently, the impact of prior inequities was beyond the reach of corrective action authorized by the Act. ... 1966, five months after charges had been filed with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. Footnote 6 By signing up for this email, you are agreeing to news, offers, and information from Encyclopaedia Britannica. Rec. 13724. When the Company abandoned its policy of restricting Negroes to the Labor Department in 1965, completion of high school also was made a prerequisite to transfer from Labor to any other department. ] The Court of Appeals ruled that Negroes employed in the Labor Department at a time when there was no high school or test requirement for entrance into the higher paying departments could not now be made subject to those requirements, since whites hired contemporaneously into those departments were never subject to them. On job-related tests ruling, the practice is prohibited Rights Act of 1963 B ) Civil Rights of! Useful servants, but Congress directed the thrust of the United States Court of Appeals there! To mean that an individual in a majority group is given preference over a minority group than Negroes never! March 8, 1971 requires login ) Company, Griggs sued the Power Company because it coal! 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