Disparate Impact/Disparate Treatment Case Study

Disparate Impact/Disparate Treatment

The US Equal Employment Opportunity Commission protects employees when they feel they are being discriminated against. This discrimination can be direct and overt or subtle and unintentional. The two distinctions for these forms of discrimination are Disparate Treatment and Disparate Impact. This paper will present one case study for each form of discrimination, the ruling of the cases, and how the cases affect the authors work environment at Novellus Systems.

In 1999, Mark Pasternak was fired from his state job, Office of Children and Family Services, helping troubled youths. While working 1995 until his release in 1999 Mr. Pasternak was forced to endure racial slurs, sabotage, and other abuses by his supervisor, Tommy E. Baines, who was of a different ethnicity. In 1998, the state performed an investigation and punished Baines by fining him $2,000. They did not remove him as a supervisor. A coworker of Pasternak's, who is of the same ethnicity as the supervisor, corroborated Pasternak's claim that the supervisor made derogatory remarks about Pasternak.

What makes this case so different from other discrimination cases is that Mr. Pasternak is white and Mr. Baines is black. Google searches for Disparate Treatment bring up mostly cases against companies where the plaintiffs are anything but white. This case stood out because of the reverse racism. In 2007 the jury deliberated for 10 hours and reached a verdict in favor of the plaintiff and awarded him $150,000.

In 1971, Duke Power Co. required an applicant have a high school diploma and pass two professionally developed tests. These hiring practices resulted in a disproportion of whites being hired more then blacks. A lawsuit was fired and went all the way to the Supreme Court, Griggs v. Duke Power Co. The lower courts had found that the employer was not guilty of discrimination because all applicants were held to the same standard. The Supreme Court found the company guilt of Disparate Impact. The requirements for employment exceeded the requirements of the job. Therefore, whether intention or not, the unnecessary tests were precluding a protected group from a job they were capable of performing.

The implications of the two rulings presented above at Novellus Systems are not substantial. Novellus Systems is in the micro processor equipment manufacturing business and has thousands of employees. These employees are from diverse backgrounds, ethnicities, and nationalities. Novellus employees Field Service Engineers (FSE) to work with customers on equipment installation, maintenance, and training. The FSE group is diverse and contains both male and females of multiple ethnicities. Research shows or rather does not show any record of discrimination lawsuits being filed against Novellus Systems. There is a disparity between the number of blacks in the FSE group and this has raised questions within the group.

The low representation of black FSEs can not be attributed to employment requirements as they are the