Griggs v. Duke Power Co.
E31055
Griggs v. Duke Power Co. is a 1971 U.S. Supreme Court decision that established the doctrine of disparate impact in employment discrimination law, holding that seemingly neutral job requirements that disproportionately exclude protected groups can violate Title VII.
All labels observed (4)
| Label | Occurrences |
|---|---|
| Griggs v. Duke Power Co. canonical | 8 |
| 1971 U.S. Supreme Court decision in Griggs v. Duke Power Co. | 1 |
| Griggs | 1 |
| Griggs et al. v. Duke Power Company | 1 |
How this entity was disambiguated
This entity first appeared as the object of triple T243138 — resolving that mention is where its identity was fixed. The disambiguator weighed these candidate entities and picked the highlighted one (or “None”, minting a new entity). This is how homonymy is resolved: the same surface form can point to different entities.
NED1
Entity disambiguation (via context triple)
gpt-5-mini-2025-08-07
Target entity: Griggs v. Duke Power Co. Context triple: [Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, landmarkCase, Griggs v. Duke Power Co.]
-
A.
Employment Division v. Smith
Employment Division v. Smith is a landmark 1990 U.S. Supreme Court decision that significantly narrowed protections for religious practices under the Free Exercise Clause by upholding the enforcement of neutral, generally applicable laws even when they incidentally burden religion.
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B.
Katzenbach v. McClung
Katzenbach v. McClung is a 1964 U.S. Supreme Court case that upheld the federal government’s power to prohibit racial discrimination in local restaurants under the Civil Rights Act of 1964.
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C.
Sweatt v. Painter
Sweatt v. Painter was a landmark 1950 U.S. Supreme Court case that challenged racial segregation in higher education and helped lay the groundwork for Brown v. Board of Education.
-
D.
Heart of Atlanta Motel, Inc. v. United States
Heart of Atlanta Motel, Inc. v. United States is a landmark 1964 U.S. Supreme Court case that upheld the constitutionality of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 by affirming Congress’s power to prohibit racial discrimination in public accommodations under the Commerce Clause.
-
E.
Bolling v. Sharpe
Bolling v. Sharpe is a 1954 U.S. Supreme Court case that held racial segregation in Washington, D.C. public schools unconstitutional under the Fifth Amendment’s Due Process Clause.
- F. None of above. chosen
- G. Unsure - the case is ambiguous/there is not enough information to decide.
NED2
Entity disambiguation (via description)
gpt-5-mini-2025-08-07
Target entity: Griggs v. Duke Power Co. Target entity description: Griggs v. Duke Power Co. is a 1971 U.S. Supreme Court decision that established the doctrine of disparate impact in employment discrimination law, holding that seemingly neutral job requirements that disproportionately exclude protected groups can violate Title VII.
-
A.
Employment Division v. Smith
Employment Division v. Smith is a landmark 1990 U.S. Supreme Court decision that significantly narrowed protections for religious practices under the Free Exercise Clause by upholding the enforcement of neutral, generally applicable laws even when they incidentally burden religion.
-
B.
Katzenbach v. McClung
Katzenbach v. McClung is a 1964 U.S. Supreme Court case that upheld the federal government’s power to prohibit racial discrimination in local restaurants under the Civil Rights Act of 1964.
-
C.
Sweatt v. Painter
Sweatt v. Painter was a landmark 1950 U.S. Supreme Court case that challenged racial segregation in higher education and helped lay the groundwork for Brown v. Board of Education.
-
D.
Heart of Atlanta Motel, Inc. v. United States
Heart of Atlanta Motel, Inc. v. United States is a landmark 1964 U.S. Supreme Court case that upheld the constitutionality of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 by affirming Congress’s power to prohibit racial discrimination in public accommodations under the Commerce Clause.
-
E.
Bolling v. Sharpe
Bolling v. Sharpe is a 1954 U.S. Supreme Court case that held racial segregation in Washington, D.C. public schools unconstitutional under the Fifth Amendment’s Due Process Clause.
- F. None of above. chosen
Statements (48)
| Predicate | Object |
|---|---|
| instanceOf |
United States Supreme Court case
ⓘ
civil rights case ⓘ employment discrimination case ⓘ |
| arguedDate | 1970-12-14 ⓘ |
| challengedPractice |
high school diploma requirement for certain jobs
ⓘ
standardized aptitude tests for job placement and promotion ⓘ |
| citation |
28 L. Ed. 2d 158
ⓘ
401 U.S. 424 ⓘ 91 S. Ct. 849 ⓘ |
| country |
United States of America
ⓘ
surface form:
United States
|
| court | Supreme Court of the United States ⓘ |
| decisionDate | 1971-03-08 ⓘ |
| decisionType | unanimous decision ⓘ |
| defendant | Duke Power Company ⓘ |
| doctrineEstablished | disparate impact ⓘ |
| employmentContext | electric utility company jobs ⓘ |
| fullName |
Griggs v. Duke Power Co.
self-linksurface differs
ⓘ
surface form:
Griggs et al. v. Duke Power Company
|
| holding |
Title VII prohibits employment practices that are fair in form but discriminatory in operation
ⓘ
employers must demonstrate that challenged employment requirements are related to job performance ⓘ employment practices that have a disparate impact on protected groups must be shown to be job related ⓘ good intent or absence of discriminatory intent does not redeem employment procedures that operate as built-in headwinds for minority groups ⓘ |
| impactOnGroup | African American workers ⓘ |
| influenced |
Equal Employment Opportunity Commission
ⓘ
surface form:
Equal Employment Opportunity Commission guidelines
subsequent Title VII disparate impact jurisprudence ⓘ |
| jurisdiction | federal law ⓘ |
| legalArea |
anti-discrimination law
ⓘ
civil rights law ⓘ employment law ⓘ labor law ⓘ |
| legalIssue |
Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964
ⓘ
disparate impact discrimination ⓘ educational requirements for employment ⓘ employment testing requirements ⓘ |
| locationOfFacts | North Carolina ⓘ |
| opinionAuthor |
Warren E. Burger
ⓘ
surface form:
Chief Justice Warren E. Burger
|
| plaintiff |
African American employees of Duke Power Company
ⓘ
Willie S. Griggs ⓘ |
| precedentFor | disparate impact analysis in employment discrimination cases ⓘ |
| relatedCase |
Civil Rights Act of 1991
ⓘ
Wards Cove Packing Co. v. Atonio ⓘ Washington v. Davis ⓘ |
| remedySought |
elimination of discriminatory employment requirements
ⓘ
equal employment opportunities for African American employees ⓘ |
| standardAnnounced |
business necessity
ⓘ
job relatedness ⓘ |
| statuteInterpreted | Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 ⓘ |
| vote | 9-0 ⓘ |
| yearDecided | 1971 ⓘ |
How these facts were elicited
The pipeline generated the facts above by prompting gpt-5.1 with this entity's name + description and the instruction below.
Instruction
You are a knowledge base construction expert. Given a subject entity and a description of it, return factual statements that you know for the subject as a JSON list of dictionaries(triples), where keys must be "subject", "predicate" and "object". The number of facts may be very high, between 25 to 50 or more, for very popular subjects. For less popular subjects, the number of facts can be very low, like 5 or 10. # Requirements - If you don't know the subject at all, return an empty list. - If the subject is not a named entity, return an empty list. - Include at least one triple where predicate is "instanceOf". - Do not get too wordy. - Separate several objects into multiple triples with one object.
Input
Subject: Griggs v. Duke Power Co. Description of subject: Griggs v. Duke Power Co. is a 1971 U.S. Supreme Court decision that established the doctrine of disparate impact in employment discrimination law, holding that seemingly neutral job requirements that disproportionately exclude protected groups can violate Title VII.
Referenced by (11)
Full triples — surface form annotated when it differs from this entity's canonical label.
NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund represented plaintiffs
→
notableCase
→
Griggs v. Duke Power Co.
ⓘ
subject surface form:
NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund
this entity surface form:
Griggs et al. v. Duke Power Company
subject surface form:
Civil Rights Act of 1964
this entity surface form:
Griggs
this entity surface form:
1971 U.S. Supreme Court decision in Griggs v. Duke Power Co.