Trump considers doing away with disparate impact bias claims

Paul Sperry:

In what would be one of the Trump administration’s most far-reaching moves regarding race relations, top White House officials are planning a sharp pullback from federal efforts to correct imbalances in outcomes for minorities in everything from housing to hiring. On the table: a ban on the use of a controversial numbers-focused racial-bias theory known as “disparate impact.”

Federal regulators and lobbyists familiar with the change say the White House management and budget office is reviewing a proposed executive order, originally drafted by two conservative Washington think tanks, that would prohibit the use of “the disparate-impact approach in the enforcement or application of any civil-rights law.”

A catalyst for the move is White House budget director Mick Mulvaney, who is currently also serving as interim White House chief of staff and who, while serving in Congress, was a longtime critic of disparate impact. It is not clear whether President Trump has decided to issue the executive order, which would repudiate the underlying rationale for scores of regulations and thousands of government lawsuits alleging racial discrimination, resulting in billions of dollars in fines. Doing away with it would engender fierce opposition from Democrats.

The White House press office did not respond to a request for comment.

Championed by liberals and civil-rights activists, and aggressively enforced by the Obama administration, disparate-impact doctrine holds that policies or practices that are set forth and applied neutrally can be discriminatory if they have an unequal impact on specific groups. Aimed at rooting out subtle forms of bias, the theory asserts that statistical disparities can be proof of discrimination even when no intention is clear.
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One way to get rid of the disparate impact standard would be to apply it to the NBA.  Short slow white guys who can't jump very high are clearly discriminated against.  They also have limited opportunities in the NFL.  Making liberals subject to their own standards has been an effective way of pushing back against their discriminatory policies.