Disparate Treatment Violations

Disparate treatment means unequal behavior toward someone because of a protected characteristic, and it is protected under Title VII of the U.S. Civil Rights Act. A disparate treatment violation occurs when an individual of a protected group is shown to have been singled out and treated less favorably than others in a similar situation on the basis of a characteristic that is protected under Title VII. For a disparate treatment claim to be upheld in court it must be plausible and shows that the employer intentionally discriminated.*** The issue is whether the employer’s actions were motivated by discriminatory intent. Discriminatory intent can be shown either by direct evidence, or through indirect or circumstantial evidence, but it must be
v. CMS, the plantiff sued the defendant because the company’s race-neutral grooming policy discriminated against her hairstyle, dreadlocks. The claims asserted by the EEOC included that the grooming policy fails to acknowledge “the critical disadvantagee at which the dreadlock ban places black applicants” and “the people most adversely and significantly affected by the dreadlock ban are African-Americans”. It is important to keep in mind that hairstyles, even dreadlocks, are mutable characteristics. Immutable characteristics, such as race and gender, are protected by Title VII, but mutable characteristics are not. It is clear both claims assert disparate impact and not disparate treatment because the grooming policy was not a deliberate attack on any race, but rather it unintentionally targeted people with dreadlocks. The EEOC argued for disparate treatment, but it was not effective because they failed to provide a valid argument. In the Supreme Court case Ricci v. DeStefano, 18 firefighters, seventeen white and one hispanic, alleged that the city discriminated against them in violation of Title VII. The city administered a test and the eighteen firefighters passed it, which would have entitled them to managerial positions. However, the city threw out the results when they learned a disproportionate amount of African-Americans had not passed the test. The plaintiffs argued that the city had engaged in disparate treatment because the test results were thrown out due to skin color. The scores were not certified because of the results of a protected race. The city argued that the test results were not thrown out because of race, but to avoid a lawsuit from African-Americans. The Supreme Court sided with the plaintiffs because disparate treatment discrimination was evident. The city violated Title VII by disregarding the test results to the detriment of the white firefighters that received the highest scores, which subjected them to disparate treatment