Disparate Impact
7th December 2025
Google settled a racial bias lawsuit for $50 million.
Merrill Lynch paid $20 million.
Maryland taxpayers will have to pay $3 million to make a racial discrimination suit go away.
“This is ridiculous! Taxpayers should not be on the hook for this!” complains Heather Mac Donald, author of “When Race Trumps Merit.”
In our new video, she argues that companies and governments feel forced to pay because of a legal doctrine called “disparate impact.”
“Most people don’t even know what it is!” I say.
“It is their greatest weapon against excellence,” she replies, “and it is an abuse of the spirit of our civil rights laws.”
Disparate impact rules say any policy or test in which some races or sexes do better than others is illegal discrimination, even if the policy has nothing to do with race or sex.
“The Maryland State Police wanted to make sure state troopers could read at a very basic level,” says Mac Donald.
But because black applicants got lower scores, the test was ruled racist.
Because women got lower scores on the physical fitness test, the state was also found guilty of sexism.
State politicians promised to change their standards and create new tests. Maryland taxpayers still have to pay millions.