Employment discrimination provisions
An employer's evidence of a racially balanced workforce will not be enough to disprove disparate impact.
Employment discrimination provisions of the act apply to companies with more than 15 employees and define two broad types of discrimination, disparate treatment and disparate impact. Disparate treatment is fairly straightforward: It is illegal to treat someone differently on the basis of race or national origin.
For example, an employer cannot refuse to hire an African-American with a criminal conviction but hire a similarly situated white person with a comparable conviction.
Disparate impact is more complicated. It essentially means that practices that disproportionately harm racial or ethnic groups protected by the law can be considered discriminatory even if there is no obvious intent to discriminate. In fact, according to the guidance, "evidence of a racially balanced work force will not be enough to disprove disparate impact."