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.”
Federal regulators and lobbyists familiar with the change say the White House management and budget office is reviewing a proposed executive order, originally drafted by two conservative Washington think tanks, that would prohibit the use of “the disparate-impact approach in the enforcement or application of any civil-rights law.”
A catalyst for the move is White House budget director Mick Mulvaney, who is currently also serving as interim White House chief of staff and who, while serving in Congress, was a longtime critic of disparate impact. It is not clear whether President Trump has decided to issue the executive order, which would repudiate the underlying rationale for scores of regulations and thousands of government lawsuits alleging racial discrimination, resulting in billions of dollars in fines. Doing away with it would engender fierce opposition from Democrats.
The White House press office did not respond to a request for comment.
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.
Although the Supreme Court first approved use of the approach in 1971 and reaffirmed its use most recently in 2015, conservative opponents of the doctrine believe the currently constituted high court would uphold an executive order doing away with it.
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.
Conservative critics argue liberal politicians and bureaucrats have long misused the theory to find racial bias where it does not exist. They see it as a social-engineering weapon aimed at equalizing outcomes and extending the government’s power over the private sector.
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To satisfy disparate-impact claims involving minorities, police departments and courts across the country have curtailed traffic stops and arrests, forgiven court fines and fees, and eliminated cash bail requirements for arrestees. Employers have eased policies requiring clean criminal records for new hires, out of concern that arrests and convictions disproportionately disqualify minorities from employment.
Landlords have also backed off similar background checks – which they've done for decades as standard rental policy, without regard for race – because such inquiries could result in higher refusal rates for black applicants.
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Violence in urban school districts, for instance, spiked as administrators pulled back on punishments under “disparate impact” mandates issued in 2014 by the Obama administration to reduce racial disparities in suspensions and school-related arrests and to inoculate themselves from federal threats of investigation and defunding.
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rest of story here:
https://www.realclearinvestigations.com/articles/2019/02/14/trump_looks_to_end_numbers-only_bias_theory_governing_american_life.html