EEO Case
Kenneth M. York
School of Business Administration
Oakland University
Griggs v. Duke Power
401 U.S. 424 (1971)
Facts of the case
Company had 5 departments
Black employees in labor department only
No whites in labor
Labor is the lowest paying department
Before the CRA of 1964 the company had an
openly discriminatory hiring and promotion
policy
2
Griggs v. Duke Power
401 U.S. 424 (1971)
Facts of the case
After the CRA of 1964 the company instituted a
new promotion system, with new requirements:
High school diploma, and
Passing 2 achievement tests:
Multiple Cutoffs
Wonderlic
Bennett Mechanical Aptitude Test
Cutoff used was national median for high school graduates
(i.e., half of all high school graduates would not pass)
Purpose of the new system was purported to be to
improve the general quality of the workforce
3
Griggs v. Duke Power
401 U.S. 424 (1971)
Facts of the case
Percentage of North Carolina population
with high school diploma (according to
1960 census, Footnote 6):
Black = 12%
White = 34%
AIR = 12/34 = .35
4
Griggs v. Duke Power
401 U.S. 424 (1971)
Facts of the case
Wonderlic Personnel Test
Description: The WPT is a short form measure
of cognitive ability designed for simple
administration and interpretation. The WPT is a
crucial component of any successful hiring
program.
5
Griggs v. Duke Power
401 U.S. 424 (1971)
Facts of the case
Wonderlic Personnel Test
The WPT takes only 12 minutes to complete. It
accurately measures a candidate's ability to:
Learn a specific job
Solve problems
Understand instructions
Apply knowledge to new situations
Benefit from specific job training
Be satisfied with a particular job
“Evaluate your candidates' cognitive ability-the most accurate
predictor of employment success.”
6
Griggs v. Duke Power
401 U.S. 424 (1971)
Facts of the case
Wonderlic Personnel Test
The WPT enables you to match people with positions
that suit their learning speed and aptitude. Using
normative information, data from the Dictionary of
Occupational Titles (DOT) and the U.S. Department Of
Labor's O*Net database, Wonderlic can provide
suggested minimum scores for every job in the economy.
Since 1937, more than 120 million people at thousands
of organizations worldwide have taken the WPT.
7
Griggs v. Duke Power
401 U.S. 424 (1971)
Facts of the case
Wonderlic Personnel Test
Sample
Questions
When rope is selling at $.10 a foot, how many feet can
you buy for sixty cents?
Assume the first 2 statements are true. Is the final one:
1 true,
2 false,
3 not certain?
The boy plays baseball.
All baseball players wear hats.
The boy wears a hat.
Paper sells for 21 cents per pad. What will 4 pads cost?
8
Griggs v. Duke Power
401 U.S. 424 (1971)
Facts of the case
Wonderlic Personnel Test is used by the
NFL as a pre-draft selection test
Travis Dorsch of the Purdue Boilermakers
scored 42 on on the NFL's pre-draft
Wonderlic Personnel Test in 2002, the
highest since Harvard's Pat McInally in
1978
Career stats with Cincinnati Bengals:
played one game, 5 punts, 162 total
yards, 32.4 yard average; 3 returns, 153
total yards, 2 TD, net average 1.8 yards
9
Griggs v. Duke Power
401 U.S. 424 (1971)
Facts of the case
Bennett Mechanical Aptitude Test
Measures an applicant’s understanding of mechanical concepts
The Bennett Mechanical Comprehension Test (BMCT)
measures a complex set of abilities composed of three primary
facets or constructs:
1) mechanical information,
2) spatial visualization, and
3) mechanical reasoning or understanding.
The knowledge measured by this test is based on common
experiences, and special training seems to have little effect on
test scores.
10
Griggs v. Duke Power
401 U.S. 424 (1971)
Facts of the case
Percentage passing the Wonderlic plus
Bennett (Footnote 6):
Black = 6%
White = 58%
AIR = 6/58 = .10
11
Griggs v. Duke Power
401 U.S. 424 (1971)
Facts of the case
Class action suit for all blacks employed at Duke Power
Criteria for making a class action suit:
Numerosity--at least 16 people affected
Typicality--pattern or practice of the employer; not a one time
incident
Commonality--all people in the class are similarly situated
Representativeness--of the person representing the class in the
suit
Purpose of a class action suit is judicial economy, to
combine nearly identical cases and settle them as one
12
Griggs v. Duke Power
401 U.S. 424 (1971)
Ruling of the Supreme Court
Employer violated Title VII because neither the
tests nor the high school diploma were shown to
be job related
No demonstrable relationship to successful performance
on the job, i.e., the test was not valid
Both requirements disqualified blacks at a substantially
higher rate than whites, this is adverse impact
There was evidence of past discrimination--all
inside jobs were filled only by whites before 1965,
this pattern continued unchanged after 1965
13
Griggs v. Duke Power
401 U.S. 424 (1971)
Ruling of the Supreme Court
White employees selected before the high school
diploma requirement was put into effect were
performing satisfactorily, therefore the
requirement could not be job related (concurrent
validity)
The cutoff scores used on the two tests were in
effect also high school diploma requirements, only
higher (would select out half of all high school
graduates)
14
Griggs v. Duke Power
401 U.S. 424 (1971)
Ruling of the Supreme Court
No disparate treatment occurred, the
standards were applied equally to blacks
and whites, but the effect was adverse for
blacks
Practices or procedures which are neutral
on their face or in their intent may freeze
the status quo of past discrimination
(structural discrimination)
15
Griggs v. Duke Power
401 U.S. 424 (1971)
Ruling of the Supreme Court
Any employment practice which operates to
exclude blacks must be shown to be related to job
performance, else it is illegal
Effect was to discourage use of broad and general
testing devices or diplomas or degrees as fixed measures
of capability (with a recent return with validity
generalization)
Congress did not mandate that less qualified people be
preferred over more qualified because of their minority
origins; Congress made job qualifications the controlling
factor so that race, religion, nationality, and sex become
irrelevant
16
Griggs v. Duke Power
401 U.S. 424 (1971)
Relevant law or guideline
Civil Rights Act of 1964, SEC. 2000e-2. [Section
703
It shall be an unlawful employment practice for an
employer –
to fail or refuse to hire or to discharge any individual, or
otherwise to discriminate against any individual with
respect to his compensation, terms, conditions, or
privileges of employment, because of such individual's
race, color, religion, sex, or national origin; or
to limit, segregate, or classify his employees or applicants
for employment in any way which would deprive or tend to
deprive any individual of employment opportunities or
otherwise adversely affect his status as an employee,
because of such individual's race, color, religion, sex, or
national origin.
17
Griggs v. Duke Power
401 U.S. 424 (1971)
Relevant law or guideline
Uniform Guidelines on Employee Selection ,
Section 41CFR60-3.4(d), Adverse impact and the
“four-fifths rule.''
A selection rate for any race, sex, or ethnic group
which is less than four-fifths (4/5) (or eighty
percent) of the rate for the group with the highest
rate will generally be regarded by the Federal
enforcement agencies as evidence of adverse
impact, while a greater than four-fifths rate will
generally not be regarded by Federal enforcement
agencies as evidence of adverse impact.
18
Griggs v. Duke Power
401 U.S. 424 (1971)
Relevant law or guideline
Uniform Guidelines on Employee Selection, Section
41CFR60-3.3(a), Discrimination defined: Relationship
between use of selection procedures and discrimination
Procedure having adverse impact constitutes discrimination
unless justified. The use of any selection procedure which
has an adverse impact on the hiring, promotion, or other
employment or membership opportunities of members of
any race, sex, or ethnic group will be considered to be
discriminatory and inconsistent with these guidelines, unless
the procedure has been validated in accordance with these
guidelines, or the provisions of section 6 of this part are
satisfied.
19
Griggs v. Duke Power
401 U.S. 424 (1971)
The application of the case to the
effective and legal management of
human resources
Adverse Impact: Any selection procedure
where the selection ratio of the minority
group is less than 80% of the selection
ratio of the majority group has adverse
impact and cannot be used unless it can be
proved to be job-related
20
Griggs v. Duke Power
401 U.S. 424 (1971)
The application of the case to the
effective and legal management of
human resources
Test Validation: Any selection procedure
having adverse impact is discriminatory,
unless it can be shown to be valid. Tests
may be shown to be valid by Criterionrelated, Contest-related, or Constructrelated validation studies.
21