The Department of Justice said the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission violated federal civil rights law by issuing guidelines that pressured companies to make race-based decisions in the workplace or risk a lawsuit.
The DOJ’s Office of Legal Counsel took aim at disparate impact, or how a business’s enforcement of neutral policies and standards can exclude certain groups of people. Its 25-page opinion said a business may end up hiring or promoting people based on race to avoid disparate impact claims, even if a company’s policies are not designed to produce discriminatory outcomes.
The Office of Legal Counsel wrote that the historical interpretation of disparate impact “functions as a qualified racial-proportionality mandate and spurs employers to engage in race-based decisionmaking to avoid liability. That approach is unlawful and unconstitutional.”
The opinion said the EEOC’s guidelines offered an unconstitutional take on Title VII of the Civil Rights Act because it misinterpreted the 14th Amendment’s guarantee of equal treatment to also mean equal outcomes.
After issuing the opinion on Tuesday, the Justice Department said businesses can require job candidates to take aptitude tests, undergo criminal background checks or be assessed for other merit-based qualities without fear of being dragged into court.
Federal officials said employers just need to show that their business practices are reasonable and serve a valid purpose for the company. Only “irrational or arbitrary practices” that have no connection to the job at hand are grounds for disparate impact lawsuits, the opinion reads.
For people still looking to bring disparate impact claims, the DOJ said they will need to show how a specific practice caused unequal treatment and propose a fairer alternative that would negate the business’s policy.
“Despite trying to promote equality, EEOC’s disparate impact liability interpretation under Title VII actually fosters the very discrimination its guidelines seek to address,” Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche said in a statement. “This opinion will now allow businesses to hire based on performance, restoring equal opportunities in the American workplace.”
EEOC Chair Andrea Lucas said that she was “grateful” for the DOJ’s action and that the new opinion “will provide clarity regarding the Constitutional limits of disparate impact in employment discrimination matters.”
Sen. Eric Schmitt, Missouri Republican, applauded the Justice Department’s initiative.
“Disparate impact forced employers to trade neutral standards for racial quotas,” said Mr. Schmitt, a former state attorney general. “This is a direct strike on one of the Left’s favorite tools for forcing racial outcomes through law.”
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