Opinion ID: 433073
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: Adverse Impact of Examinations

Text: 42 Title VII proscribes not only overt discrimination, but also tests or criteria for employment that are fair in form, but discriminatory in effect. Griggs, supra, 401 U.S. at 430, 91 S.Ct. at 853. The ultimate question of the existence of discriminatory impact is a factual one for the district court, only to be disturbed if found on appeal to be clearly erroneous. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission v. Kimbrough Investment Company, 703 F.2d 98, 100 (5th Cir.1983). See Pullman-Standard v. Swint, 456 U.S. 273, 102 S.Ct. 1781, 72 L.Ed.2d 66 (1982). 43 Despite the state Department's strong protestations to the contrary on appeal, the district court concluded that defendants do not seriously argue that the contested examinations did not have a disparate impact on blacks, and we here find conclusively that plaintiffs established a marked disparate impact of testing on blacks, Walls, supra, 542 F.Supp. at 311. We see no need to reiterate the detailed analysis and findings by the district court. We will simply state that the evidence in the records supports as non-erroneous the district court's findings as to: (1) the disparate effect of the examinations upon black applicants, Walls, 542 F.Supp. at 293-94, see also Connecticut v. Teal, 457 U.S. 440, 102 S.Ct. 2525, 2531, 73 L.Ed.2d 130 (1982); (2) the deficiencies in their content validity (relationship of the testing items to the knowledge/skills/abilities of an applicant at entry for successful performance of job duties), 13 id., 542 F.Supp. at 294-98; 312-13; and (3) the deficiencies in their criterion validity (the relationship between test scores and job performance), id. 298-300, 312-13. 44 Aside from differing with the district court's factual appreciation of the evidence on these issues, on appeal the state Department also strongly contends that the determination of racially discriminatory impact upon blacks is suspect because it is based upon a single six-month period. The state Department did not keep records identifying the race of job applicants prior to May 1975, when the district court granted the private plaintiffs' motions to extend discovery and to permit entry at merit system examination centers. The state defendants were then ordered to monitor and prepare lists of applicants by race. Only the six subsequent months of test data were studied because this was all that was available. The district court noted that the Department's employee composition indicated that no real gains in minority employment were made until 1976, after total suspension of the written examinations, Walls, supra, 542 F.Supp. at 289, suggesting that the tests had a similar impact throughout the period in question. Under the circumstances shown, we do not find to be clearly erroneous the district court's utilization of and findings based upon the only available test data. 45 The state Department also contends that the district court erred in holding that the plaintiffs could proceed under the disparate impact theory. The defendants instead seek to invoke the protection of Sec. 703(h) of Title VII, 42 U.S.C. Sec. 2000e-2(h), by arguing that the tests were part of a merit system that required proof of intent in order to be deemed discriminatory. However, in Connecticut v. Teal, supra, 457 U.S. at 452, 102 S.Ct. at 2533, the Supreme Court ruled that no special haven for discriminatory tests that are not job-related is offered the employer by Sec. 703(h). The district court, therefore, properly rejected the defendants' claim to merit system exemption, on the grounds that unlike a seniority system which indisputably measures seniority, an invalid test cannot measure merit. Walls, supra, 542 F.Supp. at 311. See Guardians, supra, 633 F.2d at 253.