Talk:Bushey v. New York State Civil Service Commission

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From Ricci v. DeStefano district court opinion:

Bushey v. New York State Civil Service Commission, 733 F.2d 220 (2d Cir. 1984). [*158] There, the civil service commission had administered a promotional examination that had a significant adverse impact, with non-minority applicants passing at almost twice the rate of minority applicants. The defendants race-normed the scores for [**44] each group, increasing the pass rate of the minority group to the equivalent of the non-minority group, and effectively making an additional 8 minority individuals eligible for promotion, without taking any non-minorities off the list. The Court of Appeals held that the initial results, particularly "the score distributions of minority and nonminority candidates, were sufficient to establish a prima facie showing of adverse impact," id. at 225, and, consistent with Kirkland, "a showing of a prima facie case of employment discrimination through a statistical demonstration of disproportional racial impact constitutes a sufficiently serious claim of discrimination to serve as a predicate for employer-initiated, voluntary race-conscious remedies," id. at 228. In other words, a prima facie case is one way that a race-conscious remedy is justified, but it is not required: all that is required is "a sufficiently serious claim of discrimination" to warrant such a remedy. Id. at 228; see also id. at 226 n. 7.