The Department of Justice declared this week that the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission’s “disparate impact” policies are unconstitutional, tossing aside a rule, long criticized by conservatives, that saw racial discrimination whenever a policy resulted in outcomes that differed among people of different races — regardless of whether the policy had anything to do with race.In a 25-page opinion from the DOJ’s Office of Legal Counsel on Tuesday, the DOJ found that the EEOC’s policies, which made employers susceptible to Title VII racial discrimination lawsuits if hiring or promotion outcomes are different for different races, are unconstitutional. The opinion found that EEOC policies disregarded the intention behind employers’ hiring practices, instead pressuring them into engaging in “race-based decisionmaking,” in violation of the Constitution.“Just as it is unconstitutional for the federal government to ‘force States to engage in the very race-based discrimination that the Constitution forbids,’ so too it is unconstitutional for the federal government to coerce employers to adopt employment policies or make employment decisions motivated by race,” the OLC opinion said. “Disparate impact liability does not just raise constitutional doubt in occasional cases; unless narrowly circumscribed, it structurally compels the very racial discrimination that the Constitution forbids.”