(more on the world of unintended consequences)
...So why is college the key to gainful employment? It hasn’t always been so.
It’s because employers require a degree as job qualification... and that’s partly the fault of IQ tests.
Photo: Getty Images
Unreasonable Tests
In 1971, the US Supreme Court decided a case called Griggs vs. Duke Power Co. The subject was employment requirements.
Duke’s practice—and many other companies at the time—was to give job applicants an IQ test. Supposedly, this let them hire qualified people, but some companies also used tests to discriminate by race. The 1964 Civil Rights Act banned pre-employment tests that were not “a reasonable measure of job performance.”
The court ruled that Duke’s tests were too broad and not directly related to the jobs performed, which made them illegal.
Furthermore, the court said employers had the burden of proving employment tests were necessary for business purposes and not racially discriminatory. That’s hard to prove, so many US companies stopped using pre-employment tests at all.
That left a problem, though. How were employers supposed to evaluate job applicants without illegally discriminating?
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