{"id":115,"date":"2010-02-25T08:19:13","date_gmt":"2010-02-25T13:19:13","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/journals.law.harvard.edu\/crcl\/?p=115"},"modified":"2016-10-01T13:10:08","modified_gmt":"2016-10-01T17:10:08","slug":"ricci-v-destefano-declaring-civil-war-within-title-vii-by-william-yeomans","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/journals.law.harvard.edu\/crcl\/ricci-v-destefano-declaring-civil-war-within-title-vii-by-william-yeomans\/","title":{"rendered":"Article: Ricci v. DeStefano: Declaring Civil War within Title VII \u2013 By William Yeomans"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>It is the height of folly to make hard and fast predictions about the  impact of freshly minted Supreme Court decisions, especially when the  Court announces a new standard. Yet it is safe to predict that Ricci v.  DeStefano, while not as devastating as some advocates have feared, will  discourage some employers from voluntarily eliminating practices that  disadvantage minority applicants, and could inflict far broader damage  on efforts to ensure equal opportunity.<\/p>\n<p>The disheartening core of Ricci is that five members of the Court  view the twin prohibitions against discriminatory impacts and  intentional discrimination contained in Title VII of the Civil Rights  Act of 1964 as being at odds with each other.2 They have signaled that  they will treat efforts to comply with the disparate impact prohibition  as a form of race-conscious decision making.3 The Court imported a  standard from inapposite cases involving challenges to race-conscious  remedies pursuant to the Equal Protection Clause, requiring that an  employer must have a \u201cstrong basis in evidence\u201d before taking voluntary  action to eliminate a disparate impact.\u00a0 Although the precise content  of the standard remains unclear, the decision certainly makes it more  difficult for employers to voluntarily avoid practices that  disproportionately disadvantage minority applicants. In the process of  applying the standard, the Court appears to have lowered the bar for  validation of employment tests, thus making it easier for employers to  justify the use of tests that disadvantage minority applicants, and  diminishing their ability to challenge employment practices  successfully.<\/p>\n<p>The decision could have been worse. Notably, it did not reach the  significant question expressly left open by the majority and discussed  by Justice Scalia in concurrence: whether Title VII\u2019s disparate impact  standard is inherently inconsistent with the Equal Protection Clause.  In addition, on a practical level, the opinion leaves open the  possibility that well-intentioned employers and determined plaintiffs  may still find room to advance equal opportunity.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/journals.law.harvard.edu\/crcl\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/80\/2010\/02\/Yeomans-FINAL.pdf\">Click For PDF Version<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>It is the height of folly to make hard and fast predictions about the impact of freshly minted Supreme Court [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_active":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_note":"","_exactmetrics_sitenote_category":0,"site-sidebar-layout":"default","site-content-layout":"","ast-site-content-layout":"default","site-content-style":"default","site-sidebar-style":"default","ast-global-header-display":"","ast-banner-title-visibility":"","ast-main-header-display":"","ast-hfb-above-header-display":"","ast-hfb-below-header-display":"","ast-hfb-mobile-header-display":"","site-post-title":"","ast-breadcrumbs-content":"","ast-featured-img":"","footer-sml-layout":"","ast-disable-related-posts":"","theme-transparent-header-meta":"","adv-header-id-meta":"","stick-header-meta":"","header-above-stick-meta":"","header-main-stick-meta":"","header-below-stick-meta":"","astra-migrate-meta-layouts":"default","ast-page-background-enabled":"default","ast-page-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"ast-content-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":true,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[3,44,35,32],"tags":[126,127,458,532,552],"coauthors":[],"class_list":["post-115","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-amicus","category-courts","category-guest-author","category-labor-and-employment","tag-civil-liberties","tag-civil-rights","tag-ricci-v-destefano","tag-supreme-court","tag-title-vii"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/peZrWS-1R","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/journals.law.harvard.edu\/crcl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/115","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/journals.law.harvard.edu\/crcl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/journals.law.harvard.edu\/crcl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/journals.law.harvard.edu\/crcl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/journals.law.harvard.edu\/crcl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=115"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/journals.law.harvard.edu\/crcl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/115\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/journals.law.harvard.edu\/crcl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=115"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/journals.law.harvard.edu\/crcl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=115"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/journals.law.harvard.edu\/crcl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=115"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/journals.law.harvard.edu\/crcl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=115"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}