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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

#21

Post by tbrownaw »

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".…

> 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),

The current rules are that [in specific listed contexts] you are not allowed to treat individuals differently on the basis of [explicit list of characteristics].

That's essentially your (a), except it's not up to interpretation. Pretending that it is up to interpretation is how you get things like what the article is about (in that case by measuring group statistics rather than comparing individual experiences).

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

#22

Post by tbrownaw »

polski-g wrote: post #17
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.

At least some were the result of court cases, so maybe not that trivial to reverse.

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

#23

Post by newsomix9xl »

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.

I saw a 2025 copyright at the bottom.

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

#24

Post by tbrownaw »

rayiner wrote: post #15
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?

The usual argument I see is that group differences in outcome exist, therefore there necessarily must be discrimination somewhere causing those differences. That this discrimination can't be found is proof of how inventive the people doing the discriminating are.

Since these practices are inferred from their effects rather than directly observed, there's no list.

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

#25

Post by tbrownaw »

newsomix9xl wrote: post #23
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.

I saw a 2025 copyright at the bottom.

Sure, but that looks like a page footer. If I go to the site home it's the same, so it's probably the last time the site was a whole was updated.

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

#26

Post by solidsnack9000 »

usernomdeguerre wrote: post #20
JackFr wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

I'm not sure how the approach you're proposing addresses the example JackFr offers.

One reason is that the exam still results in disparate outcomes -- it only tests basic skills -- even though it is not in its design or operation discriminatory. It is a good example of a system that has disparate impact simply as a reflection of some other factor, outside of its control.

Your proposal is to combine the exam with a hiring evaluation that weights some factors besides scores on the exam, but "...given a basket of roughly equal candidates to a position..." is doing a lot of work in that proposal. Is that a given? Is that even likely? That depends on the underlying education system, again; and as long as those baskets of roughly equal candidates are rare, the system you propose would also have considerable disparate impact.

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

#27

Post by ButlerianJihad »

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.

web.archive.org first found it on 9/11/2025

https://web.archive.org/web/20250000000000*/https://www.nyuj...

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