1.1. What were the legal issues in this case? What did the appeals court decide? In this case Mr. David Dunlap, a fifty year-old black man, filed a lawsuit against Tennesse Valley Authority, alleging racial discrimination under Title VII of the the Cival Rights Act of 1964. Mr. Dunlap has twenty-two years of experience as a boilermaker and fifteen years of experience supervising a group of boilermaker. Mr. Dunlap alleges that he attempted to be an employee of Tennesse Valley Authority (TVA) since the 70's, but has never received an opportunity for an interview with the company despite its vast experience in the field. After applying again in TVA, Mr. Dunlap argues that the interview was contaminated and that he had been subjected …show more content…
Why did the plaintiff’s disparate (adverse) impact claim fail? For a claim of disparate impact can be proven, the plaintiff has to show in court that a facially neutral employment practice is more harshly on one group than another and have to demostrate that the practice it is not a business necessity. (p. 222) In this case, Mr. Dunlap failed to demonstrate that the techniques used in his interview process by TVA were ever used in the other interviews given to other candidates. Also, he failed to show that any statistical evidence showing that a protected group was adversely impacted. 3. Why did the plaintiff’s disparate treatment claim succeed? What was the evidence that the employer’s reliance on interview scores was a pretext for race discrimination? A complaint of disparate treatment can be proved if the plaintiff could prove that a candidate had been disfavored and others had been favored because of race, color, religion, sex, or national origin by the employer. (P.222) TVA's selection committee established an interview scores were the interview subjective criteria has a weight of 70% and the technical expertise (skills) would account 30%. The committed would transfer the bulk of the final score from objective measuments towards a subjective