Trump Looks to Uproot Numbers-Only Bias Test Widely Used in U.S.
In what would be one of the Trump administration’s most far-reaching moves regarding race relations, top White House officials are planning a sharp pullback from federal efforts to correct imbalances in outcomes for minorities in everything from housing to hiring. On the table: a ban on the use of a controversial numbers-focused racial-bias theory known as “disparate impact.”
Championed by liberals and civil-rights activists, and aggressively enforced by the Obama administration, disparate-impact doctrine holds that policies or practices that are set forth and applied neutrally can be discriminatory if they have an unequal impact on specific groups. Aimed at rooting out subtle forms of bias, the theory asserts that statistical disparities can be proof of discrimination even when no intention is clear.
The Obama administration used disparate impact to sue hundreds of school districts for civil rights violations because they disciplined black students at higher rates than whites. It also used the theory to allege bias in consumer credit reporting, employee background checks, student loans, criminal court fines, traffic stops and arrests, and home and auto lending, among other things.
https://www.realclearinvestigations.com/articles/2019/02/14/trump_looks_to_end_numbers-only_bias_theory_governing_american_life.html