Employment discrimination on the basis of factors like race, religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, and disability is unlawful under New Jersey employment law. Broadly speaking, courts have identified two types of unlawful employment discrimination: discriminatory intent and disparate impact. Cases based on discriminatory intent often involve overt bias. In disparate impact cases, an employer may violate the law if their policy or practice has an outsized adverse impact on a protected group, even if it appears outwardly neutral. A group of federal agencies developed a guideline several decades ago, known as the Four-Fifths Rule, for determining when a policy or practice has too much of a disparate impact on a protected group. While this rule significantly predates the current use of artificial intelligence (AI) in employment, it provides a useful guide for assessing when an AI tool might violate employment laws.
Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 is the main federal statute dealing with employment discrimination. It mentions five protected categories by name: race, sex, religion, color, and national origin. Congress amended the statute in 1978 to add discrimination based on pregnancy and childbirth to the definition of sex discrimination. The U.S. Supreme Court has held that sex discrimination includes discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity.
The Four-Fifths Rule is based on uniform guidelines developed by four federal agencies in 1978: the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC), the Civil Service Commission, the Department Of Labor, and the Department of Justice. Although it includes the word “rule,” the Four-Fifths Rule is more like a guideline that provides an idea of when an employment practice might run afoul of the law.
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