From the perspective of Jackson's lawyer, however, the 2.7 percent of African Americans in the workforce coupled with the fact that only 1.6 percent of the company's 5,155 managers were African-American "demonstrates to the world that Microsoft is not interested in hiring or promoting blacks- (Wilcox, 2001).
Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and its amendments prohibit job discrimination against applicants and employees on the basis of race, color, national origin, religion, and gender "whether intentional (disparate-treatment) or unintentional (disparate-impact). On the surface, it appeared that Microsoft was failing miserably in its obligation to create a workplace free of exactly the kind of discrimination that Title VII was meant to prohibit. .
But appearances can deceive. In Donaldson v. Microsoft, the court concluded that the plaintiffs "failed to establish the existence of a class of persons sharing any common claim of discrimination."" In addition, the court stated, they failed "to come forward with some evidence of either disparate treatment or disparate impact arising from the implementation of the [evaluation ratings] system-, the issue at the center of the plaintiff's allegations (Donaldson v. Microsoft, 2001, p. 11). The Jackson v. Microsoft case, on the other hand, was never decided on its merits because of a successful motion to dismiss by Microsoft. But in view of the close similarity of the two cases and the fact that both were heard in the same court, it appeared reasonable to assume the likelihood of a similar outcome. In Microsoft's words, "the court concluded that the plaintiffs did not demonstrate that there was any pattern or practice of race or gender discrimination at Microsoft- (Microsoft's response, 2001).
The characterization of the problem that seems more useful and balanced runs deeper. Despite outreach programs, women and minorities generally remain underrepresented among high-tech workers.
