Disparate Treatment and Disparate Impact

Disparate Treatment and Disparate Impact
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Discrimination in the context of employment can either be classified as disparate treatment or disparate impact based on the details and situation of the case. This categorization can also be based on the employer’s intention of perpetrating the implied discrimination. Putting these cases as either disparate treatment or disparate impact enables prosecutor’s alternate techniques to substantiate that companies or employers have a legal purpose for their actions and workers can demonstrate that the proprietor has ill intention. Employees should have proper knowledge regarding these legal concepts and should differentiate the two terms for them to understand the kind of proof needed from them to establish a case against the employer. This paper delineates the two forms of discrimination: disparate treatment and disparate impact. It also highlights the differences as well as similarities between the two discriminatory habits.
The primary similarity between disparate impact and disparate treatment is that both encompass treating persons differently based on an attribute that is either essentially or allegedly owned by the victim due to his/her membership or a group. Similarly, the two forms of discrimination have the same deliberate processes. Furthermore, both disparate impact and disparate treatment affect an individual negatively, and this at times causes wrangles in places of work. Moreover, both forms of discrimination lead to legal cases even though employers in disparate impact might not be liable.

Lastly, both disparate impact and disparate treatment are practices prohibited by federal laws in addition to other forms of workplace discrimination based on sex, religion, race, equal pay, color, and disability.
The main difference between disparate impact and disparate treatment is that the former is unintentional and established by the use of statistical disparities while the latter is conscious and purposeful discrimination. In other terms, disparate impact is an idea that some employer’s undertakings, supported by statistics significantly impact a group of individuals more than another but unintentionally. On the other hand, disparate treatment cases involve employee’s claims that they are treated differently than others in similar situations. While employers might show their justification of actions out of company’s necessity in disparate impact, the case is otherwise in disparate treatment. This means that employers are liable in disparate treatment cases while they might not be liable when it comes to disparate impact. Unlike disparate treatment that obliges for intentions to discriminate, disparate impact cases or claims do not need discriminatory intentions prof. Finally, disparate treatment practices demonstrate discrimination against some groups, unlike disparate impact practices which are relatively neutral.
The predominant aim of this paper was to point out the similarities as well as differences between disparate impact and disparate treatment. Because both types of prejudice comprise concentration on socially significant characteristics, this shows that they encompass the same premeditated processes. Similarly, given the link between how being a member of a particular social group impact a person and the intentional processes of these forms of discrimination, they emerge to be related to group membership in virtually the same manners. Not only does the paper highlight the similarities and differences of disparate impact and disparate treatment but it also points out what does and does not fall into discriminatory practices. Regardless of the harm these forms of discrimination have on employees, it should be prevented by all means to make workplaces free of bias and to foster harmony amongst employees and management.