It’s Friday, and I’m sitting at my desk singing “Woahhh, we’re halfway there. Woahhh! Livin’ On a Prayer.” Why? Because we are halfway through the employment law series! In the first two posts, we reviewed the cases of Griggs v. Duke Power Co. (1971) and Albemarle Paper Co. v. Moody (1975) and brushed up on the important decisions that affect test development and usage. For the final two posts of this series, we will review the cases of Washington v. Davis (1976) and Ricci v. DeStefano (2009). Let’s get started!

Washington v. Davis, 426 U.S. 229 (1976)

The Metropolitan Police Department of the District of Columbia (MPD) required all applicants seeking entry into the police academy to pass an exam intended to assess cognitive traits such as verbal ability, vocabulary and reading comprehension. At their set cut score, approximately four times as many Black applicants failed the test compared to Whites. African American test-takers who failed the exam at the set cut score then sought judgment that the exam unlawfully discriminated against Black applicants.

The case first went to two lower courts for verdict. The District Court initially ruled that the exam was “directly related to a determination of whether the applicant possesses sufficient skills requisite to the demands of the curriculum a recruit must master at the police academy.” In other words, the District Court ruled that the exam had been validated and shown to be related to “the demands a recruit must master at the police academy.”

However, the DC Court of Appeals then ruled the opposite: “the adverse impact was sufficient to establish a constitutional violation, absent proof by petitioners that the test was an adequate measure of job performance in addition to being an indication of probable success in the training program.” In other words, the DC Court of Appeals ruled that it was not enough to show that the exam was related to the demands of the police academy, but also to the job itself.

The Decision: The Supreme Court made the final decision that the District Court was correct and the DC Court of Appeals erred. The test “was directly related to the requirements of the police training program and … a positive relationship between the test and training-course performance was sufficient to validate the former, wholly aside from its possible relationship to actual performance as a police officer.”

The Implications: In a nutshell, the conflict between the District Court and the Court of Appeals concerned the appropriateness of the validation strategy used. When candidates challenge hiring decisions based on disparate impact, the test development and validation strategy are usually reviewed by the courts — and with great scrutiny — to investigate the job-relatedness of the exam.

MPD attempted to provide support for the validity or job-relatedness of the exam by presenting the significant relationship found between exam scores and police academy performance. The Court of Appeals challenged this validation strategy as inappropriate on its own due to the criterion measure of “police academy performance.” Instead, the Court of Appeals argued that a relationship needed to be established between exam scores and on-the-job performance. Ultimately, the Supreme Court ruled that the validation strategy was appropriate and the relationship between exam scores and police academy performance was sufficient to provide support for job-relatedness.

The implications for test developers are huge! The criteria used in validation studies are not limited to job performance. You do not absolutely have to establish a relationship with the exam and job performance for it to be valid or constitutionally acceptable.This is great news for test developers because adequate measures of job performance are not always available, and not being limited to this sole criterion measure allows many other avenues for investigating the relationship between test scores and aspects of the job.

Test users should be sure to read the test’s technical report for details on any studies investigating the relationship with the exam and aspects of the job. Look at the type of job aspects used in the studies (e.g., job performance, academy scores, training performance) and how it was measured (e.g., supervisory ratings of performance, attendance records, negative customer service reports) to see if you measure the same job aspects in your agency. This information can help you gauge the appropriateness of using the exam at your agency.

References

Washington v. Davis, 426 U.S. 229 (1976)