a. What is a factor that the court looked at to determine if Duke Power had a discriminatory purpose?
b. What does disparate impact mean?
Before Title VII, Duke Power hired black employees only in the labor department, where the highest pay was less than the lowest earnings in the other departments. After Title VII, the Company required all new hires for jobs in the desirable departments to have a high school education or satisfactory scores on two tests that measured intelligence and mechanical ability. Neither test gauged the ability to perform a particular job. The pass rate for whites was much higher than for blacks and blacks were also less likely than whites to have a high school diploma. The new policy did not apply to the (exclusively white) employees who were already working in the preferred departments. These "unqualified" whites all performed their jobs satisfactorily.
Black employees sued Duke Power, alleging that this hiring policy violated Title VII. The trial court dismissed the case. The Court of Appeals ruled that the policy was not in violation of Title VII because Duke Power did not have a discriminatory purpose. The Supreme Court granted certiorari.