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Disparate Treatment (disparate + treatment)

Distribution by Scientific Domains

Humanities and Social Sciences	50%

Selected Abstracts

Damned If You Do and Damned If You Don't: Title VII and Public Employee Promotion Disparate Treatment and Disparate Impact Litigation

PUBLIC ADMINISTRATION REVIEW, Issue 4 2010
Robert N. Roberts
What has been the impact of the U.S. Supreme Court's 2009 decision in Ricci v. Destefano on the selection and promotion practices of public employers?; Relying solely on circumstantial evidence, the Supreme Court held that the Civil Service Board of New Haven, Connecticut, had engaged in Title VII disparate treatment discrimination by refusing to certify the results of a promotion examination that led, in turn, to a disparate impact on African American firefighters. To limit the discretion of public employers to disregard such selection and promotion exam results, the Ricci majority held that a public employer must "have a strong basis in evidence to believe it will be subject to disparate-impact liability if it fails to the take the race-conscious discriminatory action." This article argues that the decision effectively prohibits public employers from rejecting the results of selection and promotion instruments, even though there is evidence that screening instruments inequitably affect protected groups. It also forces public employers to become more careful in developing selection and promotion examinations or face the possibility of costly Title VII litigation. [source]

INVESTIGATING RACIAL PROFILING BY THE MIAMI-DADE POLICE DEPARTMENT: A MULTIMETHOD APPROACH

CRIMINOLOGY AND PUBLIC POLICY, Issue 1 2007
GEOFFREY P. ALPERT
Research Summary The perception and existence of biased policing or racial profiling is one of the most difficult issues facing contemporary American society. Citizens from minority communities have focused their concerns on the improper use of race by law enforcement officers. The current research uses a complex methodological approach to investigate claims that the Miami-Dade, Florida Police Department uses race improperly for the purposes of making traffic stops and conducting post-stop activities. The results are mixed in that the officer's aggregate actions do not show a pattern of discriminatory actions toward minority citizens when making a traffic stop, but results of post-stop activities do show some disparate treatment of minorities. Policy Implications Five specific policy recommendations are made to reduce the perception or reality of racial profiling by the police. First, police departments must have clear policies and directives explaining the proper use of race in decision making. Second, officers must be trained and educated in the overall impact of using race as a factor in deciding how to respond to a citizen. Third, the department must maintain a data-collection and analytic system to monitor the activities of their officers as it pertains to the race of the citizen. The fourth police recommendation involves the use of record checks in the field that can set in motion a process that results in the detention and arrest of citizens. Fifth, the completion of a record of interrogation for later intelligence has implications for the citizen. The use of this intelligence tool must depend on suspicion rather than on the race of the citizen. [source]

New directions: a South Asian perspective

INTERNATIONAL SOCIAL SCIENCE JOURNAL, Issue 167 2001
Gamini Lakshman Peiris
The central challenge facing countries of the developing world such as Sri Lanka is how to reconcile ethnic and cultural diversity with the concept of mature and cohesive nationhood. This is especially so where a federation is created not by the traditional pattern of independent entities coming together, but by devolution from a unitary state to one involving power sharing. In such situations there arealways fears that federalism is a precursor of dismemberment or disintegration. What is needed is to reconcile competing objectives for a strong and effective centre and for recognition of cultural and ethnic diversity. This may require hybrid or quasi-federal structures that do not fit neatly into unitary or federal categories. In attempting to achieve this reconciliation practicalities may require asymmetrical devolution, but this in turn may provoke emotional resistance to special or disparate treatment of particular minorities. Nor is devolution by itself sufficient. To be viable there must be suitable mechanisms to resolve intergovernmental disputes. Particularly important if confrontation and polarisation are to be minimised isemphasis upon compromise and proportionality and a public respect for pluralism, secularism, and representative democracy. [source]

PLACE-BASED AND RACE-BASED EXCLUSION FROM MORTGAGE LOANS: EVIDENCE FROM THREE CITIES IN THE NETHERLANDS

JOURNAL OF URBAN AFFAIRS, Issue 1 2007
MANUEL B. AALBERS
ABSTRACT:,Do place and race matter in mortgage loan applications? This article presents evidence from mortgage markets in the Dutch cities of Arnhem, The Hague, and Rotterdam, suggesting that place, and to a lesser extent also race, do matter. In general, race and place are not factors of direct exclusion, but (1) zip codes are included in credit scoring systems, and (2) both place and race are significant factors in the assessments by loan officers because applicants who do not meet all formal criteria are more often accepted ("overrides") for indigenous Dutch and low-risk neighborhoods than for ethnic minorities and high-risk neighborhoods. In addition, a "national mortgage guarantee" is compulsory for loan applications in high-risk neighborhoods and thereby used as a substitute for redlining, comparable to the compulsoriness of private mortgage insurance in the United States. Some lenders also engage in direct redlining by rejecting low-risk "national mortgage guarantee" loans in high-risk neighborhoods, a practice potentially explained by transaction cost economizing. Since the high-risk neighborhoods in all three cities accommodate relatively large shares of ethnic minority groups, they are hit twice: through place-based and through race-based exclusion. In other words, place-based disparate treatment results in race-based disparate impact. The neighborhood does matter; place-based exclusion in the mortgage market has a neighborhood effect. [source]