# Griggs v. Duke Power Company *Griggs v. Duke Power Co.*, 401 U.S. 424, decided **March 8, 1971**, held that Title VII of the [[Civil Rights Act of 1964]] forbids hiring and promotion rules that shut out Black workers and are not actually needed for the job, **whether or not the employer meant to discriminate**. The vote was **8 to 0**; Justice [[William Brennan]] did not take part. Chief Justice [[Warren Burger]], a Nixon appointee, wrote the opinion. It is the founding case of [[Disparate Impact]] law. ## Why it matters *Griggs* changed the question civil rights law asks. Before it, a worker generally had to prove that an employer *intended* to discriminate. After it, the question was also what a rule *does*. Burger's opinion put it in one sentence: the law "proscribes not only overt discrimination but also practices that are fair in form, but discriminatory in operation." That principle spread from employment to housing, lending and federally funded programs. It is now the main target of a federal campaign to restore an intent-only standard, beginning with [[Executive Order 14281]], which names the theory as unconstitutional. ## The case Duke Power's Dan River Steam Station in Draper, North Carolina, had openly kept Black employees in its Labor Department, where the best-paid job paid less than the worst-paid job in the four all-white operating departments. In 1955 the company began requiring a high school diploma for any department except Labor. On **July 2, 1965**, the day Title VII took effect and open segregation became illegal, it added a new requirement: passing two general aptitude tests, the Wonderlic Personnel Test and the Bennett Mechanical Comprehension Test. Neither test was designed to measure the ability to do any particular job at the plant. At the time, 14 of the station's 95 employees were Black, and 13 of them sued, led by Willie Griggs. Lawyers from the [[NAACP Legal Defense Fund]] brought the case; Jack Greenberg argued it at the Supreme Court. Both lower courts ruled for the company, finding no proof that it meant to discriminate. ## The decision The Supreme Court reversed. Because Black North Carolinians had been given inferior segregated schooling, diploma and test requirements screened them out at far higher rates than white applicants. The company had not shown either requirement had anything to do with job performance, and white employees hired before the rules existed were doing the same jobs satisfactorily. Good intentions, Burger wrote, do not "redeem employment procedures or testing mechanisms that operate as 'built-in headwinds' for minority groups and are unrelated to measuring job capability." The test was **business necessity**: an employer could use a requirement that excluded a protected group only if it was genuinely related to the job. ## What happened next - In 1989, in *Wards Cove Packing Co. v. Atonio*, a more conservative Court made disparate-impact claims much harder to win by easing the employer's burden of justification. - Congress overrode that ruling in the Civil Rights Act of 1991 and wrote the *Griggs* standard into Title VII itself. - In *Washington v. Davis* (1976) the Court held that the Constitution's equal protection guarantee, unlike Title VII, requires proof of intent. That line between statutes and the Constitution is the one the current administration is trying to erase. - In 2015 the Court relied on *Griggs* to hold that the Fair Housing Act also allows disparate-impact claims, in [[Texas Department of Housing and Community Affairs v. Inclusive Communities Project]]. Justice [[Clarence Thomas]] wrote separately to say *Griggs* itself was wrongly decided. Critics on the right, including [[David Frum]], argue that *Griggs* redefined discrimination from unequal treatment into a failure to make allowances for historical disadvantage, and that it pushed employers toward quotas to avoid lawsuits. Defenders answer that it only bans requirements an employer cannot connect to the job. ## Connections - [[Disparate Impact]] - [[Civil Rights Act of 1964]] - [[Executive Order 14281]] - [[Texas Department of Housing and Community Affairs v. Inclusive Communities Project]] - [[DEI]]