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Disparate impact

By Updated

A facially neutral practice that falls harder on a protected group. Under US Title VII the employer must show the practice is job related and consistent with business necessity, and loses if it refuses a less discriminatory alternative 1. The EU counterpart is indirect discrimination.

Developed in
ch. 16, Disparate treatment and disparate impact
ch. 20, Disparate treatment, disparate impact and proxies
Chapters
ch. 16, Fairness & XAI · ch. 20, Existing Law
Contrast with
Disparate treatment · Indirect discrimination
Source
1 numbered reference, listed below

Where it is used

3 chapters of the Body of Knowledge use the term. Each link opens the first section that does.

Sources

  1. [1] 42 U.S.C. § 2000e-2 (Title VII: unlawful employment practices; 2000e-2(k) burden of proof in disparate-impact cases, business necessity and less discriminatory alternatives). Legal Information Institute, Cornell Law School. 2026. https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/42/2000e-2 (verified: secondary)

Definitions of legal terms paraphrase the cited text, which governs. Dated statements are as of .

Cite this term

García Aibar, J. (2026). Disparate impact. In AI Governance Engineering: The Thesis & Body of Knowledge (v0.5.0), Glossary. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.22956197. https://aigovernanceengineer.com/glossary/disparate-impact. CC BY 4.0

BibTeX

@misc{aige2026disparateimpact,
  author  = {Jorge García Aibar},
  title   = {{Disparate impact}},
  note    = {Glossary, AI Governance Engineering: The Thesis \& Body of Knowledge, version 0.5.0},
  year    = {2026},
  doi     = {10.5281/zenodo.22956197},
  url     = {https://aigovernanceengineer.com/glossary/disparate-impact}
}