BACKGROUND
In February 2023, a disabled 40 year old African American job applicant named Derek Mobley, filed a discrimination lawsuit against Human Resources (HR) software vendor Workday, Inc. in the Northern District of California. Mobley alleged that Workday’s automated resume-screening tools rejected his applications for more than 80 roles, discriminating against him on the basis of race, age and disability. Although the court initially dismissed the case in January 2024 for failing to show that Workday was an “employment agency,” Mobley filed an action in court in February 2024, emphasizing that Workday’s system could evaluate resumes without human oversight and make recommendations that effectively determine who advances to interview.
In April 2024, the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) filed an amicus brief supporting the plaintiff, arguing that Artificial Intelligence (AI)-driven hiring tools may allow employers to exclude protected groups even without explicit intent. A month later, a federal judge allowed the case to proceed, holding that Workday’s software participates in the decision-making process by recommending which candidates should move forward and which should be rejected, thereby acting as an “agent” of the employer. By mid-2025, the case had been certified as a collective action on behalf of applicants aged 40 and over, and the judge ordered Workday to identify customers using certain AI features. The litigation raises novel questions about whether technology vendors can be directly liable for discriminatory outcomes and has intensified scrutiny of algorithmic bias in hiring.
