Law Commons^™

Disparate Impact Theory In Employment Discrimination: What’S Griggs Still Good For? What Not?, Elaine W. Shoben

Scholarly Works

Is disparate impact a dead theory of employment discrimination? Definitely not. The theory itself has a more stable legal status than it did when the Supreme Court embraced it in its 1971 opinion Griggs v. Duke Power Co. But is it thriving in litigation? It appears to be neither thriving nor dead. It has become a relatively less vital tool, compared with theories of intentional discrimination. Despite the heroic effort of Congress to keep the theory from destruction by the Supreme Court through its express codification in 1991, disparate impact litigation is not making a major impact in this …

What Is Affirmative Action?, John Valery White

Scholarly Works

There is no rigorous definition of affirmative action. This Article argues that this remarkable circumstance has distorted and undercut American antidiscrimination law.

Though affirmative action is vigorously and widely debated, it has not been defined in the rigorous manner legal commentators would normally demand. Rather, commentators have deferred to policymakers' descriptions of affirmative action programs and employed those “definitions” to set the terms of policy debates over the propriety of affirmative action. Typically, commentators take for granted that affirmative action is “discriminatory” and seek to justify its use in certain contexts. This approach is also prominent in the United States …