Sara Perez - Dunlap V. Tennessee Authority

Sara Perez

Dunlap v. Tennessee Authority

HRM 510

Strayer University

Dr. Lucinda Lawson

May 16th, 2012

Dunlap v. the Tennesee Valley Authority is a legal case which examines the use of subjective criteria in the hiring process. David Dunlap brought suit under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, alleging racial discrimination by the Tennessee Valley Authority. The legal issues in this case are that Dunlap had been subjected to discrimination under both disparate treatment and disparate impact analyses, concluding that the TVA's subjective hiring processes permitted racial bias against both Dunlap and other black job applicants.

The legal issues in this particular case involve David Dunlap, a fifty-two year old black man who has worked as a boilermaker for twenty years, and his experience with discrimination that led to him missing out on a job offer with Tennessee Valley Authority. Mr. Dunlap submitted his resume in a timely manner, which highlighted his previous work with TVA facilities, his boilermaker training, his supervisory experience, and his 27,000 hours of experience in the field. Dunlap and the other 20 people that were interviewed for the 10 positions were all marked as being qualified. The selection team was composed of five white officials and one black official. The selection team decided that the applicant's interview would account for seventy percent of their final score and technical expertise would account for 30 percent. One major reason for the disparate impact claim was that the applicants score sheets were "rebalanced" after each interview. When the interview team balanced Mr. Dunlap's scorecard, he received lower scores than some of the other applicants. For example, Mr. Dunlap reported that at his previous job he had excellent attendance and only missed a few days for family illness, and he received a score of 3.7. When two other white applicants gave virtually the same answer, they received scores of 4.2 and 5.5. This example demonstrates that the entire interview was biased on the grounds that the interview team intended to hire white men for the open positions.

After the interviews were completed, the applicants were ranked in order of least to most qualified and the selection committee divided the applicants into three categories: outstanding, well-qualified, and qualified. Mr. Dunlap was ranked 14th of the 21 applicants. The use of subjective criteria during the interview process is what led Mr. Dunlap to file suit. The standards and means of assessing the candidates were not uniform and clearly specified. TVA should have had a scale for topics such as work accidents, and outlined how many accidents would equal what number on the scorecard. Subjective criteria can present a legal issue, as in this case of Dunlap v. TVA. The Supreme Court believes