Griggs v. Duke Power Co.

Supreme Court of United States
401 U.S. 424 (1971)

ELI5:

Rule of Law:

Under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, an employment practice that is facially neutral but has a discriminatory effect on a protected class is unlawful unless the employer can demonstrate that the practice is a business necessity and has a manifest relationship to job performance.

Facts:

Prior to 1965, Duke Power Company's Dan River plant openly segregated its employees by race.
Black employees were restricted to the low-paying Labor department, while the four other higher-paying departments were reserved for white employees.
In 1955, Duke Power instituted a policy requiring a high school education for employment in any department except Labor.
When the company desegregated in 1965, it made the high school diploma a requirement for Black employees to transfer out of the Labor department.
On July 2, 1965, the effective date of Title VII, Duke Power added a requirement that applicants for departments other than Labor must pass two standardized aptitude tests (the Wonderlic Personnel Test and the Bennett Mechanical Comprehension Test).
Both the diploma and test requirements disqualified Black applicants at a substantially higher rate than white applicants.
Duke Power did not conduct any studies to show that either the high school diploma or the standardized tests were related to an employee's ability to perform the jobs in question.
White employees hired before the new requirements were implemented, who did not have high school diplomas, continued to perform their jobs satisfactorily and received promotions.

Procedural Posture:

A group of incumbent Black employees, including Willie Griggs, brought a class-action lawsuit against Duke Power Company in the U.S. District Court, alleging that the company's educational and testing requirements violated Title VII.
The District Court, a federal trial court, ruled in favor of Duke Power, finding that the company's discriminatory practices had ceased and that Title VII did not apply retroactively to remedy the effects of past discrimination.
The employees appealed to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit.
The Court of Appeals, an intermediate appellate court, affirmed in part and reversed in part. It held that Title VII did not require employers to remedy the effects of past discrimination, and it upheld the use of the diploma and testing requirements because there was no evidence of discriminatory intent in their adoption.
The employees (petitioners) sought and were granted a writ of certiorari by the U.S. Supreme Court.

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Issue:

Does Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 prohibit an employer from requiring a high school diploma or a passing score on a general intelligence test as a condition of employment when these requirements disproportionately disqualify Black applicants and are not demonstrably related to job performance?

Opinions:

Majority - Chief Justice Burger

Yes. Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 prohibits employment practices that are fair in form but discriminatory in operation, regardless of the employer's intent. The Act requires the removal of artificial, arbitrary, and unnecessary barriers to employment when those barriers operate to discriminate on the basis of race. The Court reasoned that the statutory language of Title VII focuses on the consequences of employment practices, not merely the motivation. If a practice, such as a testing or educational requirement, operates to exclude a protected class and cannot be shown to be significantly related to job performance, it is prohibited. The Court held that Congress placed the burden on the employer to show that any given requirement has a 'manifest relationship to the employment in question.' Since Duke Power could not demonstrate that its diploma and testing requirements were related to job performance, and because they had a disproportionate impact on Black employees, the practices were unlawful.

Analysis:

This landmark decision established the legal theory of 'disparate impact' discrimination under Title VII. Before Griggs, employment discrimination cases primarily focused on 'disparate treatment,' which required proof of an employer's discriminatory intent. By shifting the focus to the effects or consequences of employment practices, the Court created a powerful tool to challenge systemic discrimination caused by facially neutral policies that perpetuate the effects of past segregation. This ruling significantly expanded the scope of Title VII and placed a new burden on employers to validate their hiring and promotion criteria to ensure they are genuinely job-related.

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