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EMPLOYMENT OPPORTUNITY: JOB REQUIREMENTS AND DISCRIMINATION

Low Wages, No Transfer

The Dan River Steam Station, owned by the Duke Power Company, had ninety-five employees. Fourteen were black. Employees could work in one of five areas: labor, coal handling, operations, maintenance, and laboratories and testing. The highest wages in the labor section were lower than the lowest wages in any other area. It was generally not possible to transfer between areas. All the black employees were in labor, with no hope of moving up.

The Civil Rights Act and Employment Opportunity

The Civil Rights Act of 1964 prohibited racial discrimination in employment. Duke Power could no longer officially discriminate. In September 1965 Duke Power instituted two tests—the Wonderlic Personnel Test and the Bennett Mechanical Comprehensive Test. If an employee passed the tests, he could transfer between sections. Black employees seldom passed the tests and there-fore could not transfer to better jobs. They sued Duke Power with the help of the NAACP Legal Defense and Education Fund. They maintained that the tests did not measure the employee's ability to do a job and that they resulted in black employees being passed over for better jobs. Duke Power itself could not show that those who did well on the tests performed better in their new positions. The black employees argued that the test violated the new Civil Rights Act.

Griggs v. Duke Power

The Supreme Court decided the issue in Griggs v. Duke Power (1971). They held that if a test were given as a prerequisite for a job, the employer would have to show that the requirement actually measured a skill related to the job. The Court said that it was not necessary for the employee to show that the employer intended to discriminate by using a test, only that the job exam had the effect of discriminating. The Court placed the burden of showing that obligatory tests helped select better workers squarely on the employer. Many traditional job requirements could not be shown to help employers pick employees who could do a better job, including some of the federal government's own civil service examinations; they had to be dropped.