Oklahoma Administrative Code › Title 335 - Oklahoma Human Rights Commission › Chapter 15 - Interpretive Guidelines on Employment Discrimination › Subchapter 1 - General Provisions on Employment Discrimination › Section 335:15-1-3 - Discrimination defined

Current through Vol. 41, No. 20, July 1, 2024
(a)
Adverse impact.
(1) The Commission hereby adopts the definition of discrimination set forth by Chief Justice Warren Burger of the United States Supreme Court in "Griggs v. Duke Power Company", (3 EPD para 8137) 401 U.S. 424(1971), a case arising under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. In that case, the Supreme Court defined discrimination in employment as follows:
(A)
The object of Congress in the enactment of Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 is plain from the language of the statute. It was to achieve equality of employment opportunities and remove barriers that have operated in the past to favor an identifiable group of white employees over other employees. Under the Civil Rights Act of 1964, practices, procedures, or tests neutral on their face, and even neutral in terms of intent, cannot be maintained if they operate to "freeze" the status quo of prior discriminatory employment practices
. ["Griggs v. Duke Power Co." 401 U.S. 424(1971), 3 EPD para 1837].
(B)
Congress did not intend by Title VII, Civil Rights Act of 1964, however, to guarantee a job to every person regardless of qualifications. In short, the Civil Rights Act of 1964 does not command that any person be hired simply because he was formerly the subject of discrimination, or because he is a member of a minority group. Discriminatory preference for any group, minority or majority, is precisely and only what Congress had proscribed. What is required by Congress is the removal of artificial, arbitrary, and unnecessary barriers to employment when the barriers operate invidiously to discriminate on the basis of racial or other impermissible classification
. ["Griggs v. Duke Power Co." supra.].
(C)
Congress has now provided that tests or criteria for employment or promotion may not provide equality of opportunity merely in the sense of the fabled offer of milk to the stork and the fox. On the contrary, Congress has now required that the posture and condition of the job-seeker be taken into account. It has-to resort again to the fable-provided that the vessel in which the mile is proffered be one all seekers can use. The Civil Rights Act of 1964 proscribes not only over discrimination but also practices that are fair in form, but discriminatory in operation. The touchstone is business necessity. If an employment practice which operates to exclude Negroes cannot be shown to be related to job performance, the practice is prohibited
. ["Griggs v. Duke Power Co." supra.].
(D)
Good intent or absence of discriminatory intent does not redeem employment procedures or testing mechanisms that operate as "built-in headwinds" for minority groups and are unrelated to measuring job capability
. ["Griggs v. Duke Power Co." supra.].
(E)
The Company's lack of discriminatory intent is suggested by the special efforts to help the under educated employees through company financing of two- thirds the cost of tuition for high school training. But Congress directed the thrust of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 to the consequences of employment practices, not simply the motivation. More than that, Congress has placed on the employer burden of showing that any given requirements must have a manifest relationship to the employment in question.
["Griggs v. Duke Power Co." supra.].
(F)
The facts of this case demonstrate the inadequacy of broad and general testing devices as well as the infirmity of using diplomas or degrees as fixed measures of capability. History is filled with examples of men and women who rendered highly effective performance without the conventional badges of accomplishment in terms of certificates, diplomas, or degrees. Diplomas and tests are useful servants, but Congress has mandated the common-sense proposition that they are not to become masters of reality
. ["Griggs v. Duke Power Co." supra.].