"Iowa justices find bias, but toss suit" Associated Press July 19, 2014
IOWA CITY — The Iowa Supreme Court rejected a class-action lawsuit Friday alleging the Iowa executive branch discriminated against black job applicants, even while finding that African-Americans face biases that make it harder to get jobs.
In agreeing with a lower court decision to dismiss the case, justices said the class of 5,000 black workers and job applicants failed to prove they suffered systemic discrimination because they did not show that specific hiring rules disadvantaged them.
But all seven recognized the impact of implicit bias, in which individuals subconsciously favor white people over black people. Meanwhile, three justices said they were concerned that black applicants may have been disadvantaged by subjective resume-screening processes that left them less likely to be granted interviews.
The plaintiffs argued state managers had allowed biases to creep into decisions on which candidates to hire. Their case was based on statistics that suggest black people had fewer interviews and jobs than white people at state agencies.
Are you sure it just wasn't good old-fashioned well-connected corruption like the Massachusetts Department of Probation?
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