Your article refers to what you call "Duke Power’s use of industry-standard aptitude tests in employment decisions. " Bur here are the actual facts:
>The Company added a further requirement for new employees on July 2, 1965, the date on which Title VII became effective. To qualify for placement in any but the Labor Department it became necessary to register satisfactory scores on two professionally prepared aptitude 428*428 tests, as well as to have a high school education. Completion of high school alone continued to render employees eligible for transfer to the four desirable departments from which Negroes had been excluded if the incumbent had been employed prior to the time of the new requirement. In September 1965 the Company began to permit incumbent employees who lacked a high school education to qualify for transfer from Labor or Coal Handling to an "inside" job by passing two tests— the Wonderlic Personnel Test, which purports to measure general intelligence, and the Bennett Mechanical Comprehension Test. Neither was directed or intended to measure the ability to learn to perform a particular job or category of jobs.
>....
>On the record before us, neither the high school completion requirement nor the general intelligence test is shown to bear a demonstrable relationship to successful performance of the jobs for which it was used. Both were adopted, as the Court of Appeals noted, without meaningful study of their relationship to job-performance ability. Rather, a vice president of the Company testified, the requirements were instituted on the Company's judgment that they generally would improve the overall quality of the work force.
>The evidence, however, shows that employees who have not completed high school or taken the tests have continued to perform satisfactorily and make progress in departments for which the high school and test criteria are now used
As for whether the plaintiffs got everything they wanted at the appeals court level, in fact, according to Chief Justice Burger, who wrote the majority opinion in Griggs, "After careful analysis a majority of that court concluded that a subjective test of the employer's intent should govern, particularly in a close case, and that in this case there was no showing of a discriminatory purpose in the adoption of the diploma and test requirements. On this basis, the Court of Appeals concluded there was no violation of the Act."
> according to Chief Justice Burger, who wrote the majority opinion in Griggs
I'mma stop you right there. Citing the testimony of the guy who got everything wrong and screwed up our society as a result does very little to bolster the credibility of your argument!
You are being very silly. And it is easy enough to find the lower court's decision:
>Having determined that Duke's educational and testing requirements were valid under Title VII, we reach the conclusion that those four Negro employees without a high school education who were hired after the adoption of the educational requirement are not entitled to relief.
Griggs v. Duke Power Company, 420 F. 2d 1225 - (4th Circ 1970). Some of the plaintiffs won, but the ones who challenged the test requirement -- ie, the ones whose appeal was before the Supreme Court, lost. They did not get everything they wanted at the appeals court level, as you claim; rather, they LOST at the appeals court level..
As I said, the plaintiffs got everything they could *reasonably* have wanted. Challenging the test requirements is well outside of the realm of the reasonable, because the Civil Rights Act explicitly stated that tests were permitted "notwithstanding any other provision" so long as they weren't used for the purpose of prohibited discrimination.
The appeals court found that that had not happened, that the people who had actually been discriminated against had actually been discriminated against and were entitled to a remedy, and that the people who had just not scored well on the tests were out of luck. Which was exactly right.
Then the EEOC folks appealed it further because they didn't care about the law or about what was right; they wanted to push their agenda and pervert the law, that clearly said that tests were allowed as long as they were not used for discriminatory purposes, into a new form in which "nondiscriminatory tests" are not a recognized concept.
All of this was in my article. I don't know why you're throwing these facts at me as if you think I'm unaware of them.
>Challenging the test requirements is well outside of the realm of the reasonable
One would think that the fact that the Supreme Court unanimously sided with the Supreme Court might make you reconsider this position. Apparently, not a single Justice felt it was outside the realm of the reasonable. That doesn't mean that the decision was correct, but for you to excoriate the EEOC for pursuing an appeal which they won unanimously (without even a concurrence) is nonsensical.
Keep in mind, this was the Burger Court. The same renegade Justices who handed down the absurdly wrong Roe v. Wade ruling not long after. There's nothing whatsoever that's "nonsensical" about excoriating people for getting bad rulings out of them!
Yes, of course. Everyone who disagrees with you (or, to be more precise, everyone who agrees with your strawman version of Griggs) are "renegades." Just like, per your article, the lawyers who appealed Griggs supposedly "weren’t actually after . . . the well-being of their clients" despite the fact that their clients who appealed lost their cases below.
Your article refers to what you call "Duke Power’s use of industry-standard aptitude tests in employment decisions. " Bur here are the actual facts:
>The Company added a further requirement for new employees on July 2, 1965, the date on which Title VII became effective. To qualify for placement in any but the Labor Department it became necessary to register satisfactory scores on two professionally prepared aptitude 428*428 tests, as well as to have a high school education. Completion of high school alone continued to render employees eligible for transfer to the four desirable departments from which Negroes had been excluded if the incumbent had been employed prior to the time of the new requirement. In September 1965 the Company began to permit incumbent employees who lacked a high school education to qualify for transfer from Labor or Coal Handling to an "inside" job by passing two tests— the Wonderlic Personnel Test, which purports to measure general intelligence, and the Bennett Mechanical Comprehension Test. Neither was directed or intended to measure the ability to learn to perform a particular job or category of jobs.
>....
>On the record before us, neither the high school completion requirement nor the general intelligence test is shown to bear a demonstrable relationship to successful performance of the jobs for which it was used. Both were adopted, as the Court of Appeals noted, without meaningful study of their relationship to job-performance ability. Rather, a vice president of the Company testified, the requirements were instituted on the Company's judgment that they generally would improve the overall quality of the work force.
>The evidence, however, shows that employees who have not completed high school or taken the tests have continued to perform satisfactorily and make progress in departments for which the high school and test criteria are now used
As for whether the plaintiffs got everything they wanted at the appeals court level, in fact, according to Chief Justice Burger, who wrote the majority opinion in Griggs, "After careful analysis a majority of that court concluded that a subjective test of the employer's intent should govern, particularly in a close case, and that in this case there was no showing of a discriminatory purpose in the adoption of the diploma and test requirements. On this basis, the Court of Appeals concluded there was no violation of the Act."
> according to Chief Justice Burger, who wrote the majority opinion in Griggs
I'mma stop you right there. Citing the testimony of the guy who got everything wrong and screwed up our society as a result does very little to bolster the credibility of your argument!
You are being very silly. And it is easy enough to find the lower court's decision:
>Having determined that Duke's educational and testing requirements were valid under Title VII, we reach the conclusion that those four Negro employees without a high school education who were hired after the adoption of the educational requirement are not entitled to relief.
Griggs v. Duke Power Company, 420 F. 2d 1225 - (4th Circ 1970). Some of the plaintiffs won, but the ones who challenged the test requirement -- ie, the ones whose appeal was before the Supreme Court, lost. They did not get everything they wanted at the appeals court level, as you claim; rather, they LOST at the appeals court level..
Yes.
As I said, the plaintiffs got everything they could *reasonably* have wanted. Challenging the test requirements is well outside of the realm of the reasonable, because the Civil Rights Act explicitly stated that tests were permitted "notwithstanding any other provision" so long as they weren't used for the purpose of prohibited discrimination.
The appeals court found that that had not happened, that the people who had actually been discriminated against had actually been discriminated against and were entitled to a remedy, and that the people who had just not scored well on the tests were out of luck. Which was exactly right.
Then the EEOC folks appealed it further because they didn't care about the law or about what was right; they wanted to push their agenda and pervert the law, that clearly said that tests were allowed as long as they were not used for discriminatory purposes, into a new form in which "nondiscriminatory tests" are not a recognized concept.
All of this was in my article. I don't know why you're throwing these facts at me as if you think I'm unaware of them.
>Challenging the test requirements is well outside of the realm of the reasonable
One would think that the fact that the Supreme Court unanimously sided with the Supreme Court might make you reconsider this position. Apparently, not a single Justice felt it was outside the realm of the reasonable. That doesn't mean that the decision was correct, but for you to excoriate the EEOC for pursuing an appeal which they won unanimously (without even a concurrence) is nonsensical.
Keep in mind, this was the Burger Court. The same renegade Justices who handed down the absurdly wrong Roe v. Wade ruling not long after. There's nothing whatsoever that's "nonsensical" about excoriating people for getting bad rulings out of them!
Yes, of course. Everyone who disagrees with you (or, to be more precise, everyone who agrees with your strawman version of Griggs) are "renegades." Just like, per your article, the lawyers who appealed Griggs supposedly "weren’t actually after . . . the well-being of their clients" despite the fact that their clients who appealed lost their cases below.