Griggs v Duke Power Co, 401 US 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 adverse impact theory, and was decided on March 8, 1971. It is generally considered the first case of its type.
The Supreme Court ruled that the company's employment requirements did not pertain to applicants' ability to perform the job, and so were discriminating against black employees. The judgment famously wrote 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."
Video Griggs v. Duke Power Co.
Facts
Duke Power Company was a public utility corporation that was involved in the generation, transmission, distribution, and sale of electric power to the general public in North Carolina and South Carolina. Duke Power also supplied electric power to federal government agencies and, for that reason, was subject to an Executive Order that prohibited discrimination in employment.
In the 1950s Duke Power's Dan River plant had a policy that blacks were allowed to work only in its Labor department, which constituted the lowest-paying positions in the company. In 1955 the company added the requirement of a high school diploma for its higher paid jobs.
Maps Griggs v. Duke Power Co.
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.
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), 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.
David Frum asserts that before Griggs, employers did not have to separate intentional wrongs from unintentional wrongs if they treated all applicants equally by appearances.
Justice Ginsburg's dissent in Ricci v. DeStefano suggests that the Griggs conclusion (that Congress aimed beyond "disparate treatment"; it targeted "disparate impact" as well and proscribed not only overt discrimination but also practices that are fair in form, but discriminatory in operation) has been effectively overturned by the Ricci decision.
Although private employers with 15 or more employees need to be careful, it was held in Washington v. Davis (1976) that public employers, such as police departments, enjoy sovereign immunity.
See also
- US labor law
- Intelligence and public policy
- List of United States Supreme Court cases, volume 401
- Ricci v. DeStefano
- United Steelworkers v. Weber
- Piscataway v. Taxman
Notes
Further reading
- Belton, Robert (2014). The Crusade for Equality in the Workplace: The Griggs v. Duke Power Story. University Press of Kansas. ISBN 978-0-7006-1953-5.
- Garrow, David J. (2014). "Toward a Definitive History of Griggs v. Duke Power, Co." (PDF). Vanderbilt Law Review. 67 (1): 197-237.
External links
- Oyez.com summary
- FindLaw.com article
- Griggs v. Duke Power Co. Decision
Source of the article : Wikipedia
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