| There is updated research on the issue of differing distributions of scores between the groups of people characterized as "black" and "white" in the United States. The score gap is narrowing, according to an important review article published this year by the American Psychological Association, http://www.apa.org/pubs/journals/releases/amp-67-2-130.pdf and investigating how the gap arose in the first place has been very illuminating about the effect of early childhood environment and formal schooling on the development of IQ. But, yes, the reason the Supreme Court ruled as it did in the 1971 Duke Power case is that there has been a difference in the distribution of IQ scores among "white" and "black" people in the United States, and also an odious legacy of efforts to deny employment opportunity to black people, so if a company has a particular hiring process, it had better make sure that the hiring process will "bear a demonstrable relationship to successful performance of the jobs for which it was used." See the writings of James R. Flynn, particularly http://www.apa.org/pubs/journals/releases/rev1082346.pdf http://www.iapsych.com/iqmr/fe/LinkedDocuments/dickens2006a.... http://www.iapsych.com/iqmr/fe/LinkedDocuments/dickens2006b.... http://www.iapsych.com/iqmr/fe/LinkedDocuments/flynn2007c.pd... and http://www.iapsych.com/iqmr/fe/LinkedDocuments/flynn2010a.pd... for background on the narrowing gap between "race" groups in the United States. |