In this week’s Clarion Call, I comment on a paper recently released by the Pope Center (along with the Center for College Affordability and Productivity) that gives a convincing answer to that question.
In its 1971 decision in Griggs v. Duke Power, the Supreme Court rewrote a section of the 1964 Civil Rights Act meant to allow non-discriminatory employment aptitude testing. The Court bought the liberal activist line that such testing was illegal if it had a “disparate impact” on minority applicants and could not be proven reasonable under a difficult “business necessity” test. Therefore, with general aptitude testing to screen applicants a legal minefield, employers turned increasingly to college credentials as a (rather poor) substitute.
This is another of those instances where liberal interventionism has had unintended and undesirable consequences. Obtaining a college degree is much more of a hurdle for poorer people than was getting a passing score on an aptitude test.
