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Any test that has disparate impact is in effect illegal. Leetcode at least makes this process more opaque which helps limit liability. I have edited my post to

Any test that has disparate impact is in effect illegal. Leetcode at least makes this process more opaque which helps limit liability. I have edited my post to note that there is no explicit legislation making IQ tests illegal in the US.

tptacek 2y ago
I don't need to litigate this, but they're not "effectively" illegal either. Again: big firms with huge HR departments and lots to lose use then, and brag about it.
- cjbgkagh 2y ago
  Those I assume also have big legal departments, for smaller companies such lawsuits can be extinction events. This has been previously discussed in detail on HN 12 years ago; https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2414135 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2414135 I would suggest that times have changed since then and disparate impact lawsuits are now more likely to prevail in 2024 than in 2012, so the in-effect aspect has increased since then. I know quite a few CEOs who confide in me that they would rather give IQ tests but do not because of their concerns over legal consequences. Clearly this is anecdotal but this sentiment does seem to be pervasive and extensive and repeated throughout the internet over a long period of time. It would be helpful if you could list some of these companies that publicly state they give IQ tests. I've only heard about this as a practice at hedge funds and even then it was public knowledge / gossip but not publicly stated. In my brief search for such companies I came across this; https://nypost.com/2022/03/15/silicon-valley-firm-apologizes-after-asking-applicants-for-iq-scores/ https://nypost.com/2022/03/15/silicon-valley-firm-apologizes... which is a company that has now apologized for giving IQ tests and is being warned about the legal consequences for having them.
  - tptacek 2y ago
    This NY Post story is speculative; the VC firm that did this (stupid) hiring thing, of asking people to take a free online IQ test and a Meyers-Briggs personality test(!), got called out on Twitter and backed down, blaming the process on an intern. They weren't sued. I'm not saying you won't get dunked on if you, for instance, Wonderlic-test applicants for your tech company. You will. But I don't think you're going to get sued.
    - cjbgkagh 2y ago
      I'm grasping at straws looking for a counter example to my overall assertion, that it is not a great counter example does not undermine my case. I made a genuine good faith effort to find them - you could help me out a lot if you could list these companies that boast publicly about administering IQ tests. That would go a long way to demonstrating that such tests are not in effect illegal. My assertion is that IQ tests are already known to have disparate impact and with laws as they are in effect they are illegal. My next assertion is that aptitude tests will suffer the same fate as IQ test because they too will be shown to have disparate impact for the same reasons. That not all such aptitude tests have been sued already under this law does not make them safe from lawsuits as the burden of proof is on the company using them.
      - tptacek 2y ago
        Were that the case, several of the largest employers in the country should be getting routinely sued for hiring discrimination. They are not.
        cjbgkagh 2y ago
        Ok, so what several largest employers are you talking about? If this is pubic knowledge as you allege then there is no need to be obtuse. And again, that list of employers that publicly brag about continued administering of IQ tests would be rather helpful to your case and would allow me to substantively check your assertion. I don't understand why in good faith you would not want to share this information. You cannot use the absence of lawsuits for a list of companies that you are keeping secret as evidence of absence of legal liability.
        kasey_junk 2y ago
        Procter & Gamble famously uses “cognitive assessments” for hundreds of thousands of applicants per year. There are test prep firms for it much like you’d find for the mcat or gre.
projectazorian 2y ago
> Any test that has disparate impact is in effect illegal Nope, it just has to be shown to be relevant to the requirements of the job. So you call it an "employment skills assessment," make 80% of it indistinguishable from an IQ test, and add some domain-specific questions related to the industry or the position. P&G has done this for a long time, among other companies.
- cjbgkagh 2y ago
  This has been true for a long time but I would suggest that it's no longer true, or at least less true. Such aptitude tests, the opaque form of IQ tests, are now increasingly and effectively being challenged on the same disparate impact that IQ tests were. Rather recently the NY Teachers aptitude test was demonstrated to have disparate impact resulting in a payout of $1.8B. Perhaps one way to get rid of leetcode would be to demonstrate that it also has a disparate impact. Though I have little hope that what would replace leetcode would be any better, especially since it would have to be even more opaque than leetcode already is.
  - tptacek 2y ago
    The teachers aptitude test involved errors in scoring the test, not a conceptual problem with aptitude testing teachers.
    - cjbgkagh 2y ago
      As it appears you are more familiar with the case than I am, it would be helpful if you could point out what those errors are? As best I can tell 'Judge Wood ruled that an older state-certification test, which was intended to measure teachers’ knowledge of the liberal arts and science, was racially discriminatory.' Elsewhere I'm seeing "The court found that Black and Latino teachers clearly passed these tests at lower rates than white teachers. In order to prove that this wasn't illegal, the defendants had to show that the test actually demonstrated what it promised: that teachers who did well on the test would do better in their jobs." It seems to me that the error was using the wrong test and it was the wrong test because it had disparate impact. What it does not appear to be is a case that is not about disparate impact because it instead had errors.
jrs235 2y ago
Nope. Many police departments give IQ tests. Score to high and you can be passed over.
- cjbgkagh 2y ago
  lol, I guess that’s one way to avoid a disparate impact lawsuit. Perhaps we could fix leetcode tests by only hiring people who fail them.

tptacek 2y ago

I don't need to litigate this, but they're not "effectively" illegal either. Again: big firms with huge HR departments and lots to lose use then, and brag about it.

cjbgkagh 2y ago
Those I assume also have big legal departments, for smaller companies such lawsuits can be extinction events. This has been previously discussed in detail on HN 12 years ago; https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2414135 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2414135 I would suggest that times have changed since then and disparate impact lawsuits are now more likely to prevail in 2024 than in 2012, so the in-effect aspect has increased since then. I know quite a few CEOs who confide in me that they would rather give IQ tests but do not because of their concerns over legal consequences. Clearly this is anecdotal but this sentiment does seem to be pervasive and extensive and repeated throughout the internet over a long period of time. It would be helpful if you could list some of these companies that publicly state they give IQ tests. I've only heard about this as a practice at hedge funds and even then it was public knowledge / gossip but not publicly stated. In my brief search for such companies I came across this; https://nypost.com/2022/03/15/silicon-valley-firm-apologizes-after-asking-applicants-for-iq-scores/ https://nypost.com/2022/03/15/silicon-valley-firm-apologizes... which is a company that has now apologized for giving IQ tests and is being warned about the legal consequences for having them.
- tptacek 2y ago
  This NY Post story is speculative; the VC firm that did this (stupid) hiring thing, of asking people to take a free online IQ test and a Meyers-Briggs personality test(!), got called out on Twitter and backed down, blaming the process on an intern. They weren't sued. I'm not saying you won't get dunked on if you, for instance, Wonderlic-test applicants for your tech company. You will. But I don't think you're going to get sued.
  - cjbgkagh 2y ago
    I'm grasping at straws looking for a counter example to my overall assertion, that it is not a great counter example does not undermine my case. I made a genuine good faith effort to find them - you could help me out a lot if you could list these companies that boast publicly about administering IQ tests. That would go a long way to demonstrating that such tests are not in effect illegal. My assertion is that IQ tests are already known to have disparate impact and with laws as they are in effect they are illegal. My next assertion is that aptitude tests will suffer the same fate as IQ test because they too will be shown to have disparate impact for the same reasons. That not all such aptitude tests have been sued already under this law does not make them safe from lawsuits as the burden of proof is on the company using them.
    - tptacek 2y ago
      Were that the case, several of the largest employers in the country should be getting routinely sued for hiring discrimination. They are not.
      - cjbgkagh 2y ago
        Ok, so what several largest employers are you talking about? If this is pubic knowledge as you allege then there is no need to be obtuse. And again, that list of employers that publicly brag about continued administering of IQ tests would be rather helpful to your case and would allow me to substantively check your assertion. I don't understand why in good faith you would not want to share this information. You cannot use the absence of lawsuits for a list of companies that you are keeping secret as evidence of absence of legal liability.
        kasey_junk 2y ago
        Procter & Gamble famously uses “cognitive assessments” for hundreds of thousands of applicants per year. There are test prep firms for it much like you’d find for the mcat or gre.

projectazorian 2y ago

> Any test that has disparate impact is in effect illegal Nope, it just has to be shown to be relevant to the requirements of the job. So you call it an "employment skills assessment," make 80% of it indistinguishable from an IQ test, and add some domain-specific questions related to the industry or the position. P&G has done this for a long time, among other companies.

cjbgkagh 2y ago
This has been true for a long time but I would suggest that it's no longer true, or at least less true. Such aptitude tests, the opaque form of IQ tests, are now increasingly and effectively being challenged on the same disparate impact that IQ tests were. Rather recently the NY Teachers aptitude test was demonstrated to have disparate impact resulting in a payout of $1.8B. Perhaps one way to get rid of leetcode would be to demonstrate that it also has a disparate impact. Though I have little hope that what would replace leetcode would be any better, especially since it would have to be even more opaque than leetcode already is.
- tptacek 2y ago
  The teachers aptitude test involved errors in scoring the test, not a conceptual problem with aptitude testing teachers.
  - cjbgkagh 2y ago
    As it appears you are more familiar with the case than I am, it would be helpful if you could point out what those errors are? As best I can tell 'Judge Wood ruled that an older state-certification test, which was intended to measure teachers’ knowledge of the liberal arts and science, was racially discriminatory.' Elsewhere I'm seeing "The court found that Black and Latino teachers clearly passed these tests at lower rates than white teachers. In order to prove that this wasn't illegal, the defendants had to show that the test actually demonstrated what it promised: that teachers who did well on the test would do better in their jobs." It seems to me that the error was using the wrong test and it was the wrong test because it had disparate impact. What it does not appear to be is a case that is not about disparate impact because it instead had errors.

jrs235 2y ago

Nope. Many police departments give IQ tests. Score to high and you can be passed over.

cjbgkagh 2y ago
lol, I guess that’s one way to avoid a disparate impact lawsuit. Perhaps we could fix leetcode tests by only hiring people who fail them.