Reference no: EM132165485

A group of African-American police officers filed suit against the City of Little Rock, Arkansas, alleging racial discrimination by the police department in the promotion of officers. The promotions were made by selecting those officers who were ranked highest on a composite score ranking list, based on the score of a written exam and the weighted score from an interview.

The interview was conducted by senior officers who were all Caucasian, and the scoring was done subjectively by those officers. The African-American officers produced evidence showing that the African-Americans averaged a score of 39.6 on the written exam, while Caucasian officers averaged a score of 38.5. For the interview, African-Americans were given an average score of 12.96 points, while Caucasians were given an average score of 14.38 points. The effect of the composite ranking of the two scores for candidates for promotion was that, because after the interview, African-Americans, on average, went down 14 positions on the composite ranking, while Caucasians, on average, went up one position.

Since promotions were based on relative ranking by composite score, African-Americans were not likely to be promoted; indeed, the department had only one African-American officer promoted above sergeant in its history. Have the African-American officers made a sufficient showing to sustain a race discrimination case under either the disparate treatment or disparate impact applications of race discrimination? Explain and analyze disparate treatment and disparate impact in conjunction with the scenario.