The ADEA prohibits age discrimination against employees age 40 and older but its application to job applicants remains unsettled.
The U.S. Supreme Court last year declined to decide whether the law’s disparate impact protections apply to external applicants, leaving intact a 7th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruling. An attorney had unsuccessfully applied for an opening that requested a maximum of seven years’ experience and, in an en banc decision, the court held that the ADEA’s disparate impact protections didn’t apply.
