Target is going to pay
$2.8 million to be divided among more than 3,000 rejected job applicants under a discrimination settlement with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. The settlement goes to upper-level applicants who were subjected to a set of job screening tests Target has stopped using as a result of the EEOC's investigation:
“The tests were not sufficiently job-related,” [Julie] Schmid [acting director for the Minneapolis EEOC] said. “It’s not something in particular about the contents of the tests. The tests on their face were neutral. Our statistical analysis showed an adverse impact. They disproportionately screened out people in particular groups,” namely blacks, Asians and women. [...]
In addition, the EEOC said it found that one of the assessments that the Minneapolis-based Target formerly used and that was performed by psychologists had violated the federal Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA). Schmid said this assessment was a pre-employment medical exam that was reserved for particular leadership openings. The ADA forbids such exams before a job is offered.
These applicants faced a nearly invisible kind of discrimination, made visible by access to Target's documentation of its own hiring procedures. Target, of course, says it didn't do anything wrong but being as it has already stopped using the screening tests in question, there's no point in going to court over it. But let's be serious, this is not a small settlement. Bad stuff was going on.
When you look at a disproportionately white, male executive class, remember this kind of subtle but systemic discrimination as much as you remember some cliched bigot chomping a cigar as he laughs about not hiring anyone but white men. And consider that the EEOC is exactly the kind of federal agency Republicans are always looking to weaken.