Intent standard
This is an old revision of this page, as edited by DavidB4-bot (talk | contribs) at 20:36, June 23, 2016. It may differ significantly from current revision.
The intent standard is the idea that, for a facially neutral statute which has disparate impacts, tending towards discrimination, to be illegal, the allegedly neutral statute must have been drafted with discriminatory intent.[1] Commentators have noted that this is essentially a requirement of the criminal mens rea of intent, a very high standard to meet in a civil case. Some statutes, by virtue of the severity of their disparate impact, are per se discriminatory.[2]