Disparate Impact
Disparate impact arises from a policy that unknowingly impacts a group of employees negatively in a discriminatory manner. An example of such a case is the Isabel v. City of Memphis, a 2005 case (Peeples, 2018). It involved some African-American police officers who were against the promotion policy for a sergeant to lieutenant. They used a test to determine the promotion, and the issue of disparate impact came up when they used a cut-off score to point out eligible candidate. This otherwise did not favor the African-American sergeants. The decision to use a cutoff score was not intentional, but its impact on the African-American individuals was not positively taken.
Disparate Treatment
Disparate treatment, on the other hand, is intentional discrimination upon an employee who is treated indifferently by his or her employer despite being in a similar situation with other employees. The protected class comes in in this theory which includes a group of specific people with specific characteristics that are protected by the law. An example of such a case is Architect of the Capitol v. Iyoha (Office of Compliance, 2017). Iyoha had been demoted from his current position and claimed that he had heard from his colleagues that his employer was not for the idea of people of foreigners being at the front desk due to their accents. Iyoha had been imposed a disparate treatment given that he was from a protected.
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Affirmative Action
These are actions that are aimed at covering up for discrimination hence positive discrimination. An example of such a case is the Wygant v. Jackson Board of Education. This board had come up with a layoff policy where they were to lay off the low-level teachers but the number laid off could not be more than the low-level teachers employed at the time. The highest level teachers would not be laid off. With the policy would then result to lower level teachers were not fired and firing a relatively higher number of high-level white teachers. Wygant, a white teacher, filed a law case on the policy claiming that it discriminated against a number of her rights. The federal district court, however, was in favor of the board saying that the minority teachers were in more need of the jobs than the high-level teachers. The Supreme Court upon handling the case concluded that the policy was using affirmative action in the wrong way as there had been no history of discrimination upon the low-level teachers (Jesanis, 2006).
Discussion
Internal promotions are a continuous activity in any business organization. The steps taken during the process are required to abide by the legal requirements of the organization and the state's policy. There are six steps to legal promotions. The first step is analyzing the vacant position as to what type of skills are required, the education level and the experience. The second step is coming up with strategies for recruiting a candidate such as looking at his or her records. The third step involves coming up with a policy to guide the process. Fourthly, the recruitment team is taken through some training. The fifth step entails evaluating the policy to ensure it is from discrimination. Finally, the team is encouraged to avoid giving employees promises as it may lead to having to give out positions to people who do not deserve it (Business Management Daily, 2018)
With the above court cases in place, the policy steps used by the organization for internal promotions does not seem to abide by the legal recommendations in any of the cases. For instance, in disparate impact, they had not communicated that eligibility would be based upon the cut off score which means that they had no stable policy hence the misunderstanding. In disparate treatment, the employer had not specified the type of employees he wanted which for the specific position, therefore, defying the first step. Moreover, demoting emoting Iyoha after having worked for the position for a while, meant that he had made a contrary promise which should be avoided as per the sixth step. Finally, in affirmative action, the layoff meant that the employer had employed more individuals than he required and with no strategy of what skills that were needed. This is why the impromptu redundancy was necessary which represented unpreparedness when coming up with a legal promotion policy which led to the collision between the minority and seniority employees.
References
Business Management Daily. (2018). Choosing employees for promotion:a 6-step lehal process. Retrieved from https://www.businessmanagementdaily.com/9766/choosing-employees-for-promotion-a-6-step-legal-process-2
Jesanis, L. (2018). A sampling of Affirmative Action Cases Tried inAmerican Courts . Retrieved from https://mtholyoke.edu/~jesan201/classweb/cases.html
Office of Compliance. (2017). OCC Brown Bag Lunch series| Disparate treatment . Retrieved from https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&source=web&rct=j&url=https://www.compliance.gov/sites/default/files/Disparate%2520Treatment%2520Outline%2520for%2520Brown%2520Bag%2520FINAL.docx&ved=2ahUKEwiGqO3j-dDdAhVQfX0KHWd4C2UQFjAQegQICRAB&usg=AOvVaw0lsLrcQ0CXkjBfojRB
Peeples, G. (2018). Disparate Impact Discrimination 101. HR Professionals Magazine . Retrieved from hrprofessionalsmagazine.com/disparate-impact-discrimination-101/
