Opinion ID: 2470930
Heading Depth: 4
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Recruiting Discrimination

Text: The district court held that the City Defendants were not faced with a prima facie case of disparate-impact recruiting discrimination, reasoning that although the Government had shown a disparity between the expected and actual numbers of female and minority test-takers, there was no evidence connecting the ... disparity to the Board's recruiting practices, a causal link not established by the statistical evidence presented in support of the recruiting claim. NYC Board IV, 487 F.Supp.2d at 234; see also NYC Board III, 448 F.Supp.2d at 446 n. 57. The question of whether the district court erred in this respect is complicated. The Government, for example, wishes to argue to that court that it did. Because the court below reached its decision on this issue before Ricci, and because Ricci raises a question regarding the proper standard to apply, we think it appropriate to remand this issue for further consideration in the light of the still-to-be-determined Ricci standard. We note in particular that even if there was not an actual prima facie case of disparate impact recruiting liability, Ricci mightbut does not necessarilypermit a showing that the City Defendants had a strong basis in evidence of such a prima facie case. See supra Part V.A.1. Whether such a strong basis in evidence would suffice remains an open question. But the district court need not reach or decide this question if it finds that the City Defendants lacked even a strong basis in evidence of a prima facie case of recruiting discrimination. At the same time, we reject the Brennan Plaintiffs' contention that the City Defendants' allegedly discriminatory recruiting practicesword-of-mouth recruiting, and limited advertisingare not prohibited by Title VII even if they cause a disparate impact. Like the other courts that have addressed similar arguments, we are unpersuaded. As the Sixth Circuit has stated, the assertion that disparate impact analysis is inapplicable to ... recruiting practices is plainly incorrect. The very purpose of Title VII's disparate impact theory is to eradicate barriers which discriminate on the basis of race, gender, religion, and other protected classifications. United States v. City of Warren, 138 F.3d 1083, 1094 (6th Cir.1998) (quotations, modifications, and footnote omitted); see also Thomas v. Wash. Cnty. Sch. Bd., 915 F.2d 922, 924-26 (4th Cir.1990) (a school board violated Title VII through a combination of nepotism, word-of-mouth recruiting, and the general practice of posting notice of vacancies only in the schools, where minorities were unlikely to see them); United States v. Ga. Power Co., 474 F.2d 906, 925 (5th Cir.1973) (Word-of-mouth hiring and interviewing for recruitment only at particular scholastic institutions are practices that are neutral on their face. However, under the facts of the instant case, each operates as a `built-in-headwind' to blacks....). In addition, this court, many years ago, concluded that a prima facie case of disparate impact existed based on subjective word-of-mouth hiring methods. See Grant v. Bethlehem Steel Corp., 635 F.2d 1007, 1016 (2d Cir.1980). The Brennan Plaintiffs do not deny that recruitment practices qualify as employment practices. Their argument is, essentially, that § 703(a)(2), which makes it illegal for an employer to limit, segregate, or classify his employees or applicants for employment in any way which would deprive or tend to deprive any individual of employment opportunities, does not refer to recruiting, because people who don't even apply for a job because of recruiting discrimination are not applicants for employment. But, as the Government says, the Supreme Court has all but held that applicants includes potential applicants in the § 703(a)(2) disparate-impact context. See Wards Cove, 490 U.S. at 651 & n. 7, 109 S.Ct. 2115 (suggesting that a prima facie case of disparate impact would be made out if it were found that [a] dearth of qualified nonwhite applicants was due to practices on [an employer's] part which expressly or implicitlydeterred minority group members from applying for ... positions.); see also Dothard v. Rawlinson, 433 U.S. 321, 330, 97 S.Ct. 2720, 53 L.Ed.2d 786 (1977). [61] Accordingly, we make explicit what may have only been implicit in our decision in Grant and hold that potential applicants for employment are applicants for employment for § 703(a)(2) purposes. [62]