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Title VII

2015

Boston University School of Law

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Distinguishing Disparate Treatment From Disparate Impact; Confusion On The Court, Michael C. Harper Oct 2015

Distinguishing Disparate Treatment From Disparate Impact; Confusion On The Court, Michael C. Harper

Faculty Scholarship

In two decisions in the 2014-2015 Term, Young v. United Parcel Service, Inc., and Equal Employment Opportunity Commission v. Abercrombie & Fitch, Inc., the Court seemed to give contradictory answers to an important unresolved conceptual definitional question: Does disparate treatment include assigning members of a protected group based on their protected status to a larger disfavored group that is defined by neutral principles and that includes others who are not members of the protected group? Or does such assignment have only a disparate impact on the protected status group?

In Young, the first of these decisions, all members of the …