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Title 7 Disparate Impact Liability Makes Almost Everything Presumptively Illegal

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Re: Title 7 Disparate Impact Liability Makes Almost Everything Presumptively Illegal

#11

Post by ameliaquining »

ryandrake wrote: post #4
atomicnumber3 wrote: post #2

I struggle a lot with the potentially nonzero overlap between a) "just legislate that being racist/sexist to people is illegal, then have judges interpret" (which is what seems to be simply necessary to actually make progress against the endlessly inventive evil of racism/sexism), and b) "but also don't simply make everything illegal because then abusers can selectively enforce the law to punish groups they dislike".…

Evaluating a policy based on Disparate Impact is important because it gets rid of the truck-sized plausible deniability of "Well, see, our policies aren't technically or intentionally racist, even though the end result is clearly that racial minorities are excluded/avoided/attacked/whatever. But since we don't specifically and consciously mention race, then we're in the clear!" It's kind of a corollary to "The Purpos…

Do you reject the paper's claim (that disparate impact liability makes almost everything presumptively illegal, including in situations where no one has done anything wrong), or do you think that there's no way to address plausibly-deniable intentional discrimination with less collateral damage?

Most of the criticisms of POSIWID in https://www.astralcodexten.com/p/come-on-obviously-the-purpo... seem equally applicable to your proposed corollary.

Re: Title 7 Disparate Impact Liability Makes Almost Everything Presumptively Illegal

#12

Post by wredcoll »

profsummergig wrote: post #5

Obama forced something similar on schools: https://www.ed.gov/laws-and-policy/civil-rights-laws/race-co... The policy warned schools that racial disparities in punishments could trigger federal civil rights investigations under a "disparate impact" standard. Ergo, presumably, if a school had a single purple student. And that purple student was punished for something. Then the entire school had to also be punished for…

> Ergo, presumably, if a school had a single purple student. And that purple student was punished for something. Then the entire school had to also be punished for the thing. To not fall afoul of the law. (Or maybe I'm just too autistic to have a nuanced take.)

Then why even post? You just made something up and then spewed it out.

Re: Title 7 Disparate Impact Liability Makes Almost Everything Presumptively Illegal

#13

Post by yieldcrv »

Our industry should be going after the ATS system use and harmonizing its implementation

Should be going after the camera on policy

Should be going after leetcoding, take home interviews, and every subjective metric that isnt able to be verified in its uniform apllicability across candidates

and according to this paper, even if it was uniform lol

Re: Title 7 Disparate Impact Liability Makes Almost Everything Presumptively Illegal

#14

Post by xboxnolifes »

EGreg wrote: post #3
atomicnumber3 wrote: post #2

I struggle a lot with the potentially nonzero overlap between a) "just legislate that being racist/sexist to people is illegal, then have judges interpret" (which is what seems to be simply necessary to actually make progress against the endlessly inventive evil of racism/sexism), and b) "but also don't simply make everything illegal because then abusers can selectively enforce the law to punish groups they dislike".…

I think a) seems very quixotic and causes more problems than it solves. Instead, I would say that discrimination should probably only be illegal in places where there aren’t enough of the thing (jobs, etc). For example, what about x-only clubs, or ladies’ nights or gyms or etc.

> discrimination should probably only be illegal in places where there aren’t enough of the thing

That's every job everywhere as far as I can tell. There's fewer jobs that people want than people who want them.

Re: Title 7 Disparate Impact Liability Makes Almost Everything Presumptively Illegal

#15

Post by rayiner »

atomicnumber3 wrote: post #2

I struggle a lot with the potentially nonzero overlap between a) "just legislate that being racist/sexist to people is illegal, then have judges interpret" (which is what seems to be simply necessary to actually make progress against the endlessly inventive evil of racism/sexism), and b) "but also don't simply make everything illegal because then abusers can selectively enforce the law to punish groups they dislike".…

> which is what seems to be simply necessary to actually make progress against the endlessly inventive evil of racism/sexism

Can you give examples of how you think there are “inventive” ways people are being racist/sexist?

Re: Title 7 Disparate Impact Liability Makes Almost Everything Presumptively Illegal

#17

Post by polski-g »

tbrownaw wrote: post #16

I don't see a publish date on this? As I understand it, there have been recent shifts away from what's described and towards the relevant government agencies wanting more direct evidence of individuals being treated differently.

Easily undone by the next administration.

Re: Title 7 Disparate Impact Liability Makes Almost Everything Presumptively Illegal

#18

Post by rayiner »

ryandrake wrote: post #4
atomicnumber3 wrote: post #2

I struggle a lot with the potentially nonzero overlap between a) "just legislate that being racist/sexist to people is illegal, then have judges interpret" (which is what seems to be simply necessary to actually make progress against the endlessly inventive evil of racism/sexism), and b) "but also don't simply make everything illegal because then abusers can selectively enforce the law to punish groups they dislike".…

Evaluating a policy based on Disparate Impact is important because it gets rid of the truck-sized plausible deniability of "Well, see, our policies aren't technically or intentionally racist, even though the end result is clearly that racial minorities are excluded/avoided/attacked/whatever. But since we don't specifically and consciously mention race, then we're in the clear!" It's kind of a corollary to "The Purpos…

What you’re describing is “pretext” and it’s a different thing than disparate impact.

You can find liability for pretext even when something is facially race neutral. You have to show circumstantial evidence that the race-neutral rule is being used to deliberately achieve a racist effect. Using circumstantial evidence to infer intent is pervasive in the law. Almost all criminal laws, for example, require showing intent, but obviously almost nobody ever admits their intent. It’s almost always proven indirectly.

Disparate impact is entirely different—it eliminates the requirement of “racism” altogether. Under disparate impact, there can be liability even if there is zero intent to have a racially disparate outcome. It’s like how the University of California eliminated the SAT because of disparate impact, but thousands of professors now want it back: https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2026-08-06/why-a-pus...

Disparate impact has had a very negative effect by eliminating aptitude tests from the economy. As a result, employers have turned to college degree requirements to perform that sorting function. But that vastly increased the costs for ordinary people. Now you need a college degree just to be a receptionist.

Re: Title 7 Disparate Impact Liability Makes Almost Everything Presumptively Illegal

#19

Post by [deleted] »

JackFr wrote: post #10
ryandrake wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Evaluating a policy based on Disparate Impact is important because it gets rid of the truck-sized plausible deniability of "Well, see, our policies aren't technically or intentionally racist, even though the end result is clearly that racial minorities are excluded/avoided/attacked/whatever. But since we don't specifically and consciously mention race, then we're in the clear!" It's kind of a corollary to "The Purpos…

Imagine a city where the schools woefully underserve minority students. Despite equal budgets etc. there is a persistent gap, probably due to income gaps but that’s not the point. Within the education system there is no one institutional factor to blame. Now imagine a civil service exam in that same city, entirely race neutral but resulting in a disparity because it tests general skills. The test is de jure racist wh…

[deleted]

Re: Title 7 Disparate Impact Liability Makes Almost Everything Presumptively Illegal

#20

Post by usernomdeguerre »

JackFr wrote: post #10
ryandrake wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Evaluating a policy based on Disparate Impact is important because it gets rid of the truck-sized plausible deniability of "Well, see, our policies aren't technically or intentionally racist, even though the end result is clearly that racial minorities are excluded/avoided/attacked/whatever. But since we don't specifically and consciously mention race, then we're in the clear!" It's kind of a corollary to "The Purpos…

Imagine a city where the schools woefully underserve minority students. Despite equal budgets etc. there is a persistent gap, probably due to income gaps but that’s not the point. Within the education system there is no one institutional factor to blame. Now imagine a civil service exam in that same city, entirely race neutral but resulting in a disparity because it tests general skills. The test is de jure racist wh…

>Because the education is so poor, the only remediation is to hire unqualified people. So you end up with a deficient civil service in the name of fairness.

I think there's more solutions to that, no? The poor school might make more poor students, but statistically it probably also has some good ones too. So maybe given a basket of roughly equal candidates to a position, one can treat those with a diverse background as having a benefit, rather than looking at their school background and assuming they're unqualified or setting them aside.

If your candidates don't meet the bar then fine, but i'm not convinced that's the default case in life.

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