New Jersey Employment Lawyer Blog
The New Jersey Division on Civil Rights recently modified its proposed regulation regarding disparate impact claims based on a comment that I submitted earlier this year.
On June 3, 2024 the DCR initially proposed the new regulation to addresses disparate impact claims under the New Jersey Law Against Discrimination (“LAD”). A disparate impact claims is when a practice or policy that appears to be neutral on its face has a disproportionate negative impact on people in a particular legally-protected class, such as based on their age, race, national origin, gender, disability or sexual orientation.
The DCR’s proposed regulation would make it clear that the LAD prohibits practices and policies that have a disparate impact on members of a legally protected class even if it was not intended to be discriminatory. In other words, it is form of unlawful discrimination.