'Disparate-Impact Liability Is Dead' Thanks to New Executive Order

Leah Barkoukis | April 25, 2025 11:30 AM

President Donald Trump on Wednesday signed an executive order titled "Restoring Equality of Opportunity and Meritocracy," which eliminates the use of disparate-impact liability in all contexts. The order revokes presidential actions dating back to 1966 and 1973 and instructs federal agencies to “deprioritize enforcement of all statutes and regulations to the extent they include disparate-impact liability[.]”

“A bedrock principle of the United States is that all citizens are treated equally under the law,” the order states. “This principle guarantees equality of opportunity, not equal outcomes. It promises that people are treated as individuals, not components of a particular race or group. It encourages meritocracy and a colorblind society, not race- or sex-based favoritism. Adherence to this principle is essential to creating opportunity, encouraging achievement, and sustaining the American Dream.

“But a pernicious movement endangers this foundational principle, seeking to transform America’s promise of equal opportunity into a divisive pursuit of results preordained by irrelevant immutable characteristics, regardless of individual strengths, effort, or achievement,” the order continues. “A key tool of this movement is disparate-impact liability, which holds that a near insurmountable presumption of unlawful discrimination exists where there are any differences in outcomes in certain circumstances among different races, sexes, or similar groups, even if there is no facially discriminatory policy or practice or discriminatory intent involved, and even if everyone has an equal opportunity to succeed. Disparate-impact liability all but requires individuals and businesses to consider race and engage in racial balancing to avoid potentially crippling legal liability.”

The order says disparate-impact liability doesn’t just undermine America’s values, but is a violation of the U.S. Constitution as it “runs contrary to equal protection under the law.”

It's hard to exaggerate the harm done to the American Experiment by the disparate impact doctrine. Its logic was empirically indefensible. Its implementation was mindless. Overturning it could be one of the most important accomplishments of the second Trump term. https://t.co/0GNpbGTL84
— Charles Murray (@charlesmurray) April 24, 2025

The order calls for every agency to get work to pull all disparate-impact relevant consent judgments and permanent injunctions, to stop all investigations and civil suits based on disparate-impact, and to repeal all rules, regulations, and guidance supporting disparate-impact.
— Crémieux (@cremieuxrecueil) April 24, 2025