Sr. Economist David Sharp and his work with the EEOC.

For the fourth time in a row, the expert testimony of Senior Economist David Sharp has helped the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) attain damage settlements and consent decrees from employers accused of discrimination on the basis of race or gender.

In the most recent case, the EEOC sued Resource Employment Solutions, LLC for providing Hispanic laborers with preferential treatment in terms of hours, relative to their African-American/non-Hispanic counterparts. In 2016, Dr. Sharp conducted a statistical analysis of the defendant’s timesheet records. His analysis concluded that African-American/non-Hispanic laborers indeed received significantly fewer hours than expected, relative to their representation among the defendant’s total laborers; and, on average, received significantly fewer hours than their Hispanic counterparts. Moreover, his analysis concluded that, even after controlling for the effects of other explanatory variables on hours, all of these shortfalls were statistically significant, well beyond the legal (“Hazelwood standard”) threshold. (See Equal Employment Opportunity Commission v. Resource Employment Solutions, United States District Court for the Northern  District of Mississippi, Oxford Division, Case 3:14-CV-217-MPM-SAA.)

In the prior EEOC cases, Dr. Sharp found statistically significant evidence of disparity adverse to female applicants for stocker positions at an Indiana grocery store, African-American applicants for jobs at a Kentucky coal mine, and African-American applicants for jobs with a Tennessee temporary staffing agency. In all of these cases, Sharp’s testimony helped the EEOC attain damage settlements and consent decrees enjoining the defendants from future discriminatory conduct.