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Disparate treatment

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Treating a person less favourably because of a protected characteristic such as race, sex or age, including through a feature or rule that deliberately stands in for it 1. The EU counterpart is direct discrimination 2.

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 impact
Source
2 numbered references, listed below

Where it is used

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

  • Indirect discrimination

    The EU counterpart of disparate impact: an apparently neutral criterion that puts a protected group at a particular disadvantage, unlawful unless objectively…

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)
  2. [2] Council Directive 2000/43/EC (Racial Equality Directive) (Art. 2(2)(a) direct and 2(2)(b) indirect discrimination, with objective justification). Official Journal of the EU (EUR-Lex). 2000-06-29. https://eur-lex.europa.eu/eli/dir/2000/43/oj/eng (verified: primary)

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

Cite this term

García Aibar, J. (2026). Disparate treatment. 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-treatment. CC BY 4.0

BibTeX

@misc{aige2026disparatetreatment,
  author  = {Jorge García Aibar},
  title   = {{Disparate treatment}},
  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-treatment}
}