In Blake v. Town of La, 595 F.2d 1367, 19 EPD ¶ 9251 (9th Cir. 1979), the court looked at Dothard, supra and concluded that the plaintiffs established a prima facie case of sex discrimination by demonstrating that the height requirement resulted in the selection of applicants in a significantly discriminatory pattern, i.age., 87% of all women, as compared to 20% of all men, were excluded. This was sufficient to establish a prima facie case without a showing of discriminatory intent. The court was not persuaded by respondent’s argument that taller officers have the advantage in subduing suspects and observing field situations, so as to make the height requirement a business necessity.
(a) Standard –
Many height statutes for employees such as police officers, state troopers, firefighters, correctional counselors, flight attendants, and pilots contain height ranges, e.grams., 5’6″ to 6’5″. Although, as was suggested in § 621.2 above, many Commission decisions and court cases involve minimum height requirements, few deal with maximum height requirements. It is nonetheless conceivable that charges could be brought challenging a maximum height requirement as discriminatory. Such charges might have the following form.
Example (1) – R, police force, has a maximum height requirement of 6’5″. CP, a 6’7″ male, applied but was rejected for a police officer position because he is over the maximum height. CP alleges that this constitutes discrimination against him because of his sex (male) because of national statistics which show that women are on average shorter than men. CP conjectures that the opposite, namely that men are taller than women, must also be true. Accordingly, men must be disproportionately excluded from employment by a maximum height requirement, in the same manner as women are disproportionately excluded from employment by a minimum height requirement.
Analogy (2) – R, airlines, has a maximum 6’5″ height requirement for pilots. CP, a 6’6″ Black candidate for a pilot trainee position, alleges that he was rejected, not because he exceeded the maximum height, but because of his race (Black). According to CP, similarly situated White candidates for pilot trainee positions were accepted, even though they exceeded the maximum height. Investigation revealed that R did in fact accept and train Whites who were over 6’5″ and that R employed White pilots who exceeded the maximum height. R had no Black pilots, and no Blacks were accepted as pilot trainees.
Given that a lot more than advice strongly recommend, fees might possibly be presented predicated on disparate treatment or unfavorable impression associated with a max level criteria, plus the Payment will have jurisdiction along the matter-of the fresh costs.
(b) Different Treatment –
Disparate cures is when a protected classification or class user are treated reduced favorably than other furthermore established group to possess explanations prohibited around Term VII. (Get a hold of § 604, Concepts out of Discrimination.) This earliest idea can be applied to help you charges of restrict peak criteria. Thus, missing a valid, nondiscriminatory need, discrimination might result from the imposition of various limit level conditions if any restrict level conditions to have people unlike similarly mainly based men professionals. (See the examples in the § 621.3(a), above.)
However, there are no Percentage choices talking about different cures because of accessibility a max peak needs, new EOS may use the fundamental disparate treatment studies established from inside the § 604, Theories out-of Discrimination, to answer such as for instance charges and also as the basics of writing the fresh new LOD.
The Commission has not issued any decisions on this matter, but an analogy can be drawn from the use of different minimum height requirements farmers only com in Commission Decision No. 79-19, supra.