Griggs v. Duke Power Co.
The Court ruled that Duke Power Company's high school diploma and intelligence-test requirements violated the Civil Rights Act of 1964 because they disqualified Black applicants at much higher rates than white applicants and were never shown to relate to actual job performance.
The decision means that job requirements that look neutral on paper can still be illegal if they end up shutting out a racial group and don't measure real ability to do the work — even when the employer did not intend to discriminate.
“Under the Act, practices, procedures, or tests neutral on their face, and even neutral in terms of intent, cannot be maintained if they operate to “freeze” the status quo of prior discriminatory employment practices.”
The Court's core rule that facially neutral job requirements can still be unlawful if they perpetuate past discrimination.
How it got here: A federal trial court ruled for the company; the Fourth Circuit partly reversed but upheld the testing and diploma requirements; the Supreme Court agreed to review that portion of the ruling.
The Case in Depth
What happened
A group of Black employees at Duke Power Company's Dan River Steam Station in North Carolina sued after the company required a high school diploma and passing scores on two aptitude tests for transfer into higher-paying departments that had historically employed only white workers. The company had openly restricted Black employees to its lowest-paying department before the Civil Rights Act took effect, and added the diploma and testing requirements around the same time the law began applying to it.
The question before the Court
Could a power company require a high school diploma and an intelligence test for certain jobs when neither was shown to relate to job performance and both screened out Black applicants at far higher rates than white applicants?
Why it matters
Employers across the country can no longer rely on diplomas or standardized tests to screen job applicants unless they can show those requirements actually predict job performance. This gives workers a tool to challenge hiring and promotion rules that disproportionately exclude racial groups, even without proof the employer meant to discriminate, reshaping how businesses design hiring criteria.
What changes now
The Fourth Circuit's ruling upholding the diploma and test requirements is reversed, so those requirements can no longer be enforced as structured. The case does not resolve whether tests aimed at predicting success in future promotions could be used if an employer proves a genuine business need — that question was left open because Duke Power made no such showing. The decision otherwise stands as a final ruling on the merits.
What this does not decide
The Court did not decide whether tests assessing an employee's capacity for future promotions could be used if shown to serve a genuine, demonstrated business need, since Duke Power made no such showing here. It also did not ban all employment testing—only testing unrelated to actual job performance.
How the Court got there
The legal reasoning, step by step
- The Court held that Title VII prohibits not only intentional discrimination but also employment practices that are neutral on their face yet operate to exclude a protected group, unless the practice is shown to relate to the job — a standard the Court described as focusing on consequences rather than motive.
- The touchstone for evaluating a facially neutral job requirement is business necessity: an employer must show the requirement bears a demonstrable relationship to successful performance of the job for which it is used.
- The record showed the diploma and intelligence-test requirements disqualified Black applicants at a far higher rate than white applicants, a gap the Court linked to inferior, segregated schooling, while white employees hired before the requirements existed had performed the same jobs successfully without meeting them.
- Because the company introduced no study connecting the diploma or test scores to actual job performance, and could point only to a general hope of improving overall workforce quality, it failed to meet the business-necessity standard.
- The Court read Section 703(h)'s allowance for 'professionally developed ability tests' narrowly, deferring to the EEOC's guidelines and the law's history, to permit only tests that measure skills needed for the job, not tests validated in the abstract.
- Applying these principles, the Court concluded neither requirement could stand as used, regardless of the company's lack of discriminatory intent, because Congress directed the law at the effects of employment practices, not simply the motives behind them.
Doctrinal impact
Cases affected by this decision
Reaffirms Gaston County v. United States (395 U.S. 285)
Relied on as showing how segregated schooling can make a facially neutral literacy or intelligence test discriminatory.