Albemarle Paper

Ethyl Corporation s history provides yet another classic example of a U.S. conglomerate during the 1970s and 1980s. A most successful specialized niche company. Ethyl was acquired by a conglomerator, the Albemarle Paper Company, which acquired a wide variety of unrelated companies only to later sell them off, so that by the mid-1990s Ethyl had returned to its original niche. 

The Civil Rights Act of 1964 did not include an express prohibition on policies or practices that produce a disparate impact. But in Griggs v. Duke Power Co., 401 U.S. 424,91 S.Ct 849,28 LJid.2d 158 (1971), the Court interpreted the Act to prohibit, in some cases, anployers facially 2673 neutral practices that, in fact, are discriminatory in operation. Id., at431,91 S.Ct. 849. The Griggs Court stated that the touchstone for disparate-impact liability is the lack of business necessity If an employment practice which operates to exclude [minorities] cannot be shown to be related to job performance, the practice is prohibited. Ibid. see also id., at 432, 91 S.Ct. 849 (anployer s burden to danonstrate that practice has a manifest relationship to the employment in question ) Albemarle Paper Co. v. Moody, 422 U.S. 405, 425, 95 S.Ct. 2362, 45 L.Ed.2d 280 (1975). 

In Albemarle Paper Co. v. Moody, 422 U.S. 405, 95 S.Ct. 2362,45 L.Ed.2d 280 (1975), the Court, again without dissent, elaborated on Griggs. When an employment test select[s] applicants for hire or promotion in a racial pattern significantly different from the pool of applicants, the Court reiterated, the employer must demonstrate a manifest relationship between test and job. 422 U.S., at 425,95 S.Ct. 2362. Such a showing, the Court cautioned, does not necessarily mean the employer prevails [I] t remains open to the complaining party to show that other tests or selection devices, without a similarly undesirable racial effect, would also serve the employer s legitimate interest in efficient and trustworthy workmanship. Ibid. 

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