Griggs v. Duke Power Co.

401 U.S. 424 (1971)· Docket No. No. 124· Opinion by Chief Justice Warren E. Burger (8-0 (Unanimous))

Ontological Knowledge Graph Fingerprint

Labor, Occupational Health & Algorithmic Workplace Law

Niche Legal Sub-Discipline Tags:

#automated-employment-decision-biasActive Circuit Split

Mandatory independent bias audit protocols and statutory employment agency liability for third-party AI software screening job applicants on video, voice, and resume models.

↳ Statutory Hook: NYC Local Law 144 & Title VII (42 U.S.C. § 2000e-2)

Ontologically Correlated Precedents (3):Sorted by Shared Sub-Discipline Alignment

State v. Loomis (Algorithmic Due Process)100% MATCH

#automated-employment-decision-bias#synthetic-biometric-id-authentication

Supreme (2016)Inspect Precedent

Mobley v. Workday50% MATCH

#automated-employment-decision-bias

United (2024)Inspect Precedent

Daubert (Scientific & AI Evidence Gatekeeping)50% MATCH

#automated-employment-decision-bias

Supreme (1993)Inspect Precedent

GOOD LAW · BINDING AUTHORITY

Unanimous SCOTUS decision establishing the disparate impact doctrine governing employment selection tests and algorithms.

OPERATIVE SIGNALS & RISK DISSECTION

BINDING PRECEDENT

Operative Judicial Rule

Facially neutral employment tests that produce a disparate adverse impact violate Title VII unless validated as strictly job-related and consistent with business necessity.

Practical Tech Impact

Mandates empirical bias auditing and adverse impact ratio testing on all predictive candidate scoring algorithms.

Precedential Standing & Risk

Binding SCOTUS Bedrock (8-0 Unanimous)

Formal Judicial Holding:

“Title VII prohibits not only intentional discrimination, but also employment practices that are facially neutral in their treatment of different groups but that in fact fall more harshly on one group than another and cannot be justified by business necessity. Chief Justice Burger established the landmark 'Disparate Impact Doctrine'.”

Factual Background:

Duke Power Company instituted a requirement that applicants for higher-paying operating departments possess a high school diploma and pass two standardized aptitude tests (the Wonderlic Personnel Test and the Bennett Mechanical Comprehension Test). Neither requirement was shown to measure the ability to perform the jobs in question. Because of legacy racial segregation in education, Black applicants were disqualified at substantially higher rates than white applicants.

Procedural Posture & Issue:

On writ of certiorari to the United States Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit, which had held that Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 required proof of subjective discriminatory intent.

Issue: Whether Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 prohibits an employer from requiring a high school education or standardized general aptitude test as a condition of employment when neither standard is shown to be job-related, even in the absence of discriminatory intent.

Judicial Reasoning & Statutory Construction

1.The Touchstone of Business Necessity: 'The touchstone is business necessity. If an employment practice which operates to exclude Negroes cannot be shown to be related to job performance, the practice is prohibited.'
2.Good Intent Does Not Redeem Adverse Impact: Congress directed the thrust of Title VII to the consequences of employment practices, not simply the motivation. 'Good intent or absence of discriminatory intent does not redeem employment procedures or testing mechanisms that operate as built-in headwinds for minority groups.'
3.Job-Related Measurement: Tests and metrics must measure the person for the job and not the person in the abstract.

Doctrinal Significance & Precedential Legacy:

Griggs is the constitutional and statutory foundation for all modern anti-discrimination jurisprudence concerning automated employment decision tools (AEDTs), resume filtering algorithms, and predictive hiring bots. It establishes that algorithmic neutral scoring that causes statistically significant adverse impact violates Title VII unless the developer/employer proves strict empirical job-related validation.

Statutory Hooks & Precedents Cited:

42 U.S.C. § 2000e-2(k) (Title VII Disparate Impact Provision)29 C.F.R. Part 1607 (EEOC Uniform Guidelines on Employee Selection)NYC Admin. Code § 20-870 (Local Law 144)United States v. Sheet Metal Workers, 416 F.2d 123 (8th Cir. 1969)Local 189, United Papermakers v. United States, 416 F.2d 980 (5th Cir. 1969)

Downstream Impact:

Codified directly into federal law by Congress in the Civil Rights Act of 1991 (42 U.S.C. § 2000e-2(k)).Direct legal basis for EEOC guidance on AI hiring tools (2022–2026) and the benchmark test applied in Mobley v. Workday, Inc.

Canonical Bluebook / APA Citation:Official CourtListener / Justia Repository

Griggs v. Duke Power Co., 401 U.S. 424 (1971).