A lawsuit against Workday alleges the company’s screening technology discriminates against job applicants on the basis of race, age and disability in a case that raises new legal issues about how employers use artificial intelligence in hiring decisions.
Derek Mobley brought the discrimination lawsuit against the human resources software company in 2023, alleging he applied for hundreds of positions over seven years only to be repeatedly rejected.
Four other plaintiffs over the age of 40 have since joined the suit, blaming the AI recommendation technology that screens and ranks job applicants for “disproportionately” preventing older workers from “securing gainful employment.”
California federal judge Rita Lin ruled Friday the case can proceed as a collective action – similar to a class action – so Mobley can notify “similarly situated individuals of the lawsuit and provide them an opportunity to opt in to having their claims heard on a collective basis.”
“We continue to believe this case is without merit,” Workday said in a statement. “This is a preliminary, procedural ruling at an early stage of this case that relies on allegations, not evidence. The court has not made any substantive findings against Workday and has not ruled this case can go forward as a class action. We’re confident that once Workday is permitted to defend itself with the facts, the plaintiff’s claims will be dismissed.”
The Workday lawsuit raises new issues about the use of AI and shows the possible legal exposure for AI vendors and for employers that increasingly relying on it.
Human resources professionals lean heavily on AI technology to screen and rank applications and resumes. While the technology saves manpower and time, civil rights experts say the technology may have hidden biases that discriminate against job applicants based on protected characteristics such as gender and race.
“AI tools are trained with a large amount of data and make predictions about future outcomes based on correlations and patterns in that data – many tools that employers are using are trained on data about the employer’s own workforce and prior hiring processes. But that data is itself reflective of existing institutional and systemic biases,” warned the American Civil Liberties Union.
In 2014, a team of engineers at Amazon began building an algorithm to review resumes and determine which applicants the tech giant should hire. The system was scrapped a year later because it discriminated against women applying for technical jobs.
Mobley said he received automated rejections again and again despite a finance degree from Morehouse College and experience since 2010 working in various financial, IT help desk and customer-service positions, sometimes in less than an hour. These systems are not “race neutral, disability neutral or age neutral,” Mobley said in his complaint.
Another plaintiff, Jill Hughes, said she also received automated rejections for hundreds of roles, often within a few hours of applying.
This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Is the AI screening your resume biased? What to know
