Workday class action sounds alarm

Many businesses have welcomed artificial intelligence (AI) into their hiring and employee management processes. AI tools, like résumé screeners and recruiting crawlers, are now standard features in platforms like Workday, LinkedIn, and Indeed—you know, the ones randomly sponsoring PGA players during the Masters.

These platforms have optimized recruiting and are now indispensable for most businesses. But behind the convenience may lurk a platform prone to discriminate.

The wake-up call: Workday in court

On May 16, a federal court in California preliminarily approved a class-action lawsuit against Workday, accusing it of age-based algorithmic discrimination. The lawsuit claims Workday’s AI screening tools systematically disadvantaged older applicants. For instance, plaintiffs (the people suing) say Workday rejected hundreds of applications within hours of them being submitted, often at odd times when no human would likely be reviewing them. They also argue that, for many of these applications, no legitimate reason existed for rejection.

If Workday is found to have caused this kind of widespread harm, millions of Americans could be entitled to compensation under a disparate impact liability theory.

Wait, didn’t the president discard this type of discrimination?