Of the two common types of racial discrimination that are found in the workplace, disparate impact is the harder one to describe and even harder to prove. Disparate impact, unlike disparate treatment, is not directly aimed at a particular person or race, nor is it intentional. In fact, it is often a complete accident that disparate impact happens at all, and generally it is the fault of company policies.
One example is using the Jewish race and faith. If a Hasidic Jewish man is hired by a company and is not treated unfairly because of his race, then he is not experiencing disparate treatment. But if the company’s policy requires every employee to work one Saturday a month, the Jewish man may experience disparate impact because he cannot work on Saturdays because it is the Sabbath. In this situation, the company may change their policy regarding the necessity of everyone to work one Saturday each month.
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