Supreme Court Report

Supreme Court of the United States · Official docket →

Alireza Vazirabadi v. Denver Public Schools, et al.

Paid petition · United States Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit, No. 19-1245 · judgment July 23, 2020


Certiorari denied · February 22, 2021
Pre-decision estimate: 0% cert probability

Before the decision, well below the 4.1% base rate, with no standout signals pointing toward a grant.

Question presented

Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 makes it “an unlawful employment practice for an employer ... to limit, segregate, or classify his . . . applicants for employment in any way which would deprive or tend to deprive any individual of employment opportunities ... because of such individual’s . . .national origin.” 42 U.S.C. § 2000e-2(a)(2). (87a-88a) For “ [relationship between use of selection procedures and discrimination”, under 29 CFR § 1607.3 (91a), it considers a “[procedure having adverse impact constitutes discrimination unless justified.” And selection procedure defined under 29 CFR § 1607.16 (Id.), in pertinent part includes “[a]ny... unscored application forms”. The EEOC, under 29 C.F.R. § 1606.1 (90a), “defines national origin discrimination broadly as including...the denial of equal employment opportunity because of an individual's . . . linguistic characteristics of a national origin group.” The question presented is: Whether an employer can be liable under Title VII, when the employer requires its bilingual1 job applicants, without job requirement, disclose their bilingual language; and the refused-for-hiring bilingual applicant demonstrated that the use of bilingual questioning and language disclosure causes a disparate impact on the basis of national origin, and the employer failed to demonstrate such language questioning hiring practice is job related for the position applied and consistent with the employers business necessity. 1 The bilinguals “include people ranging from the professional interpreter who is fluent in two languages all the way to the established immigrant who speaks the host country's language but who may not be able to read or write it. In between we find the bilingual child who interacts with her parents in one language and with her friends in another”. Francois Grosjean Ph.D., Who is Bilingual?, Psychology Today (Oct. 21, 2010), https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/life-bilingual/2010] 0/whois-bilingual (last visited: December 22, 2020)

Counsel of record

For petitioner
Alireza Vazirabadi

For respondent
Jonathan Patrick Fero
Semple, Farrington, Everall & Case, P.C.

Case

Conference history
Distributed for 1 conference

Proceedings

  1. Feb 22 2021
    Petition DENIED.
  2. Jan 20 2021
    DISTRIBUTED for Conference of 2/19/2021.
  3. Jan 15 2021
    Waiver of right of respondents Denver Public Schools, et al. to respond filed.
  4. Jan 04 2021
    Petition for a writ of certiorari filed. (Response due February 16, 2021)