The Griggs decision explicitly places the same restrictions on college degrees that it does on IQ tests. Obviously nobody cares about this, and it turns out the Griggs restrictions aren’t that strict and most people manage to ask about college degree just fine. This changes the argument to be about whether there’s complicated case law around Griggs which makes employers figure that college degrees will probably be accepted in practice, but IQ tests probably won’t be.
There's not actually a prohibition on IQ tests in hiring, and in fact, during my recent job search, one company I interviewed with had me take an IQ test (it wasn't explicitly labeled as one, but it had exactly the sorts of questions you would find on one). The same company also had me go through a more typical algorithm-heavy technical interview later in the process.
There's historical basis and case law to suggest that IQ exams have been used as illegal barriers on race, and it's not too far of an argument that your test could also be discriminating against a protected class. And it's potentially horrible PR.
> What is required by Congress is the removal of artificial, arbitrary, and unnecessary barriers to employment when the barriers operate invidiously to discriminate on the basis of racial or other impermissible classification...
> On the record before us, neither the high school completion requirement nor the general intelligence test is shown to bear a demonstrable relationship to successful performance of the jobs for which it was used. Both were adopted, as the Court of Appeals noted, without meaningful study of their relationship to job performance ability. Rather, a vice-president of the Company testified, the requirements were instituted on the Company's judgment that they generally would improve the overall quality of the workforce.
> The evidence, however, shows that employees who have not completed high school or taken the tests have continued to perform satisfactorily, and make progress in departments for which the high school and test criteria are now used.[8] The promotion record of present employees who would not be able to meet the new criteria thus suggests the possibility that the requirements may not be needed even for the limited purpose of preserving the avowed policy of advancement within the Company.
> In the context of this case, it is unnecessary to reach the question whether testing requirements that take into account capability for the next succeeding position or related future promotion might be utilized upon a showing that such long-range requirements fulfill a genuine business need. In the present case, the Company has made no such showing.
The Griggs decision explicitly places the same restrictions on college degrees that it does on IQ tests. Obviously nobody cares about this, and it turns out the Griggs restrictions aren’t that strict and most people manage to ask about college degree just fine. This changes the argument to be about whether there’s complicated case law around Griggs which makes employers figure that college degrees will probably be accepted in practice, but IQ tests probably won’t be.
There's not actually a prohibition on IQ tests in hiring, and in fact, during my recent job search, one company I interviewed with had me take an IQ test (it wasn't explicitly labeled as one, but it had exactly the sorts of questions you would find on one). The same company also had me go through a more typical algorithm-heavy technical interview later in the process.