That's nice, but business necessity is, by law, an affirmative defense to discrimination claims, including those based on disparate impact. Whether the defense

That's nice, but business necessity is, by law, an affirmative defense to discrimination claims, including those based on disparate impact. Whether the defense succeeds or fails depends on the facts of the case and a court's interpretation thereof. It's literally part of the Griggs v. Duke Power Co decision from which the disparate impact standard arose. The 1991 Civil Rights Act puts on defendants the burden of proving "that the challenged practice is job related for the position in question and consistent with business necessity".