Chasing the Title VII Holy Grail: The Pitfalls of Guaranteeing Adverse Impact Elimination

Editorial: Three Perspectives of Employment Discrimination 50 Years After the Civil Rights Act—A Promise Fulfilled?

“…For example, Jacobs et al (2012) use a Monte Carlo simulation to highlight the problematic nature of a growing emphasis on statistical significance testing in determining adverse impact with large sample sizes. Arthur et al (2013) caution against making predictions about reducing adverse impact, instead suggesting that we should simply promise to offer valid and defendable assessment tools. Gutman and Dunleavy (2013) provide an overview of four central controversies involving adverse impact theory, reverse discrimination, harassment, and retaliation that have emerged in the continuing process of CRA refinement.…”

“…In short, information as to how to comply with the law is readily available to employers. While specific issues still arise that are beyond the boundaries of existing case law (for examples, see Jacobs and Murphy 2012;Arthur et al 2013;Gutman and Dunleavy 2013), they can be expected to be addressed is subsequent court rulings, thus adding to the body of knowledge on how to comply with the CRA.…”

No Steps Forward, Two Steps Back: The Fallacy of Trying to “Eradicate” Adverse Impact?

“…. Adverse impact on the other hand, is a legal and administrative concept, which follows from the logic of the phenomenon of subgroup differences, but is also concerned with the equality of outcomes in real‐world decision making” (Arthur, Doverspike, Barrett, & Miguel, , p. 3). Hence, subgroup difference reduction techniques are pretest administration techniques.…”

“…They are implemented as part of the test design and development process and are predicated not on removing differences between groups on the focal construct (e.g., there is ample physiological theory and empirical evidence for the expected and observed sex‐based differences in upper‐body strength) but instead on removing observed differences in the focal construct that may arise from construct‐irrelevant variance such that, at the end of the day, one can state that the observed differences are real and are not due to an irrelevant construct (that the groups differ on) that is present in the observed scores. Hence, subgroup difference reduction techniques are nothing more than standard good test design and development practices (Arthur et al, ). In contrast, adverse impact reduction techniques are posttest administration techniques and primarily entail attempts to eliminate the differences in observed outcomes after the test has been administered.…”

“…We do not have method‐based theories of subgroup differences and, subsequently, adverse impact reduction. Nor is there any empirical evidence (of which we are aware) that supports such a conceptualization, namely a study or studies that have held the construct constant (e.g., general mental ability) and varied the method of measurement, specifically interviews, assessment centers, or situational judgment tests to investigate reductions in subgroup differences with “substantially equal” levels of validity (Arthur & Villado, ; Arthur et al, ; Bobko & Roth, ). To the contrary, it would seem that the “alternative method” approach to adverse impact reduction is really a camouflaged construct‐change approach because the switch to alternative methods covaries with changes to more noncognitive constructs (Arthur et al, ).…”