The Diversity-Validity Dilemma

Abstract

One of the most critical problems that hospitality firms face in selecting employees is to ensure that any employment tests the employer uses are valid and do not screen out minorities. For example, the use of cognitive ability tests often leads to subgroup differences between majority and minority group members. Such a discrepancy opens an employer to charges of adverse impact (against minorities), and employers often have adjusted (or otherwise disregarded) test scores to avoid potential adverse impact and give minorities an even-handed opportunity for employment or promotion. The practice of adjusting test scores in this way was set aside in 2009 by the U.S. Supreme Court, in Ricci v. DeStefano, in which the city of New Haven, Connecticut, attempted to avoid adverse impact by disregarding test results. The court said this amounted to discrimination against the majority group members who did well on the test. The court’s holding means that if a test creates apparent adverse impact, in the absence of strong basis in evidence for disregarding the test scores, the employer may face the awkward choice of being sued for adverse impact or disparate treatment, depending on how it treats the test. The implications of Ricci v. DeStefano for hospitality employers include ensuring that jobs are correctly analyzed before any test is given and that multiple forms of various valid types of test are used to select job candidates.