In the 1950s, Albemarle began giving general ability tests to job applicants to sort them into the higher or lower-paying lines.

Initially, the plaintiffs sought only injunctive relief against policies, customs, or practices that violate Title VII under its disparate impact provision.

[2] The Supreme Court accepted cert to resolve the circuit split over the proper standard for awarding backpay, as well as what is required to show that pre-employment tests are sufficiently job-related.

[1] Justice Potter Stewart delivered a 7-1 opinion for the court vacating the Fourth Circuit's decision and remanding for further proceedings.

The court rejected the idea that plaintiffs had to show their employers' violations of Title VII were in bad faith.

[1] Justice Stewart explained that allowing backpay only where the employer acted in bad faith is inconsistent with the purpose of Title VII.

Title VII specifically provides for "make whole" relief, where the "injured party is to be placed, as near as may be, in the situation he would have occupied if the wrong had not been committed.

Albemarle administered two versions of the Wonderlic that while "theoretically identical and interchangeable measures of verbal facility, significant correlations for one form but not for the other were obtained in four job groupings.

Additionally, the standards by which supervisors evaluated employees were "extremely vague and fatally open to divergent interpretations.

Justice Marshall emphasized that backpay should be granted to successful Title VII plaintiffs except in the most extreme circumstances.

He argued that imposing backpay liability on employers whose illegal activity was in good faith provides them with little incentive to comply, absent a court order.