Applied Psychology and Changing Demographics

The Applied Psychology and Changing Demographics assignment is Week 1's largest deliverable — worth 8%, more than the week's three discussion forums combined — and it is anchored to Weekly Learning Outcome 2 and Chapter 2 of Cascio and Aguinis. Where Discussion Forum 2 places you inside a hypothetical scenario, this assignment requires something harder: finding, summarizing, and analyzing an actual, documented case of employment discrimination, then explaining what that case means for hiring practices today. This guide restates the requirements as a checklist, walks a research strategy for finding a strong case, breaks down each required section of the paper, maps the requirements to the grading rubric, and closes with a structure outline and a Quick Reference table.

The Prompt, Restated

Before beginning, review Chapter 2, the Lander and McGinn (2023) article on the SCOTUS affirmative-action ruling, the Scheiber (2023) New York Times article, and the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission website — whose Newsroom section is a suggested starting point for finding a case.

The assignment frames the task directly: laws and regulations on hiring and managing talent are dynamic and impact today's practices, case law helps define today's federal hiring practices, and what was once acceptable may not be acceptable now. Research a recent case law for discrimination, then in your paper:

• Directive 1 — Identify the case of discrimination.
• Directive 2 — Explain the specific type of discrimination.
• Directive 3 — Summarize the case issue, findings, and outcome.
• Directive 4 — Explain how the findings from the case are applied to today's practices.

Canvas lists the formatting requirements as a checklist. Meeting every item is a floor for a passing grade, independent of the quality of the analysis.

The EEOC Newsroom section is Canvas's suggested starting point, and it is genuinely the most efficient one: it lists recent lawsuits, settlements, and consent decrees the agency has pursued, each with a named employer, a stated type of discrimination, and a documented outcome — exactly the four elements the assignment's directives ask you to summarize.

What Makes a Case a Strong Choice

• It has a clear, documented outcome — a settlement amount, a consent decree, a court ruling — not merely an open, unresolved complaint.
• It fits cleanly into one or two of Title VII's protected categories (race, color, religion, sex, national origin) or another federal statute (the ADEA for age, the ADA for disability), so Directive 2 has a precise answer.
• It is recent enough to connect naturally to "today's practices" in Directive 4 — a case from the last several years works better than one from decades ago, though a landmark older case can work if you explicitly bridge it to a current practice or ruling, such as the 2023 SCOTUS affirmative-action decision.
• Secondary coverage exists — a news article, legal-industry publication, or law-firm analysis — that helps you explain the case's broader significance beyond the bare docket facts.

Where to Look

• U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission Newsroom (https://www.eeoc.gov/newsroom) — press releases on recent lawsuits and settlements, organized by type of discrimination.
• UAGC Library databases (EBSCOhost, ProQuest) — search terms like "EEOC settlement 2024," "Title VII lawsuit," or "disparate impact case" surface law-review and news coverage suitable as scholarly/credible sources.
• Major news outlets (as in the assigned Scheiber, 2023, New York Times piece) — useful for cases with wide public significance, such as those touching the post-2023 affirmative-action landscape.

Directive 1 asks you to identify the case — name the parties (plaintiff/employee and defendant/employer), the court or agency, and the year. Directive 2 asks for the specific type of discrimination involved, which should be named using Chapter 2's vocabulary and the relevant statute: race discrimination under Title VII, sex discrimination under Title VII, age discrimination under the ADEA, disability discrimination under the ADA, or a related theory such as disparate treatment (intentional discrimination against an individual because of a protected trait) versus disparate impact (a facially neutral policy that disproportionately harms a protected group).

Directive 3 is the longest section of most papers because it requires three distinct things: the issue (what the employer was accused of and why), the findings (what the investigation, court, or settlement determined about what actually happened), and the outcome (the resolution — a settlement amount, required policy changes, a consent decree, or a court ruling).

A Reliable Structure for This Section

State the issue first, in one or two sentences: who was affected, and what practice or decision triggered the complaint. Then summarize the findings: what the EEOC's investigation, a court's fact-finding, or the parties' own settlement documents established about the employer's conduct. Close with the outcome: the specific remedy, whether monetary (back pay, damages, a settlement figure) or non-monetary (required training, policy revision, EEOC monitoring). Cite the source for each factual claim — a settlement figure or court finding is exactly the kind of specific detail that needs a citation.

Directive 4 is where the paper moves from reporting to analysis, and it is the directive the grading rubric weighs most heavily under Critical Thinking. It asks you to explain how the case's findings apply to today's hiring and talent-management practices — not simply to restate the outcome, but to draw out what employers should be doing differently, or reinforcing, because of it.

Angles That Work Well

• Policy design. If the case involved a discriminatory test or screening tool, connect it to the current best practice of validating selection procedures for job-relatedness before deploying them — directly tying back to Chapter 2's legal framework and Chapter 1's applied-psychology emphasis on evidence-based assessment.
• The post-2023 legal landscape. If your case connects to the Supreme Court's affirmative-action ruling, use Lander and McGinn (2023) and Scheiber (2023) to explain how employers are re-examining DEI hiring programs and diversity initiatives in the ruling's aftermath, and where the legal boundaries currently sit.
• Documentation and training. Many settlements require specific manager training and complaint-handling procedures going forward — a natural bridge to explaining what "today's practices" should include.
• Broader deterrence. EEOC settlements are public precisely to signal enforcement priorities to other employers; explain what signal your chosen case sends to organizations making similar hiring or promotion decisions today.

Whichever angle you choose, tie it back explicitly to your thesis statement from the introduction so the paper reads as a single argument rather than four disconnected sections.

A 3–4 page paper with four required directives, an introduction, and a conclusion needs a deliberate section plan. The outline below maps cleanly onto the four directives and the required introduction/conclusion structure.

1. Title page (separate page — not counted in the 3–4 page body).
2. Introduction, ending in a clear thesis statement identifying the case and previewing the paper's argument about its significance to today's practices.
3. Section 1 — Case identification and type of discrimination (Directives 1–2).
4. Section 2 — Issue, findings, and outcome (Directive 3).
5. Section 3 — Application to today's talent-management practices (Directive 4).
6. Conclusion, restating the thesis in light of the analysis and closing on the case's broader significance.
7. References page (separate page — not counted in the 3–4 page body).

The assignment names six competencies it intends to practice: discrimination, strategic analysis, ethics, labor law, strategic implementation, and case analysis. Map your paper's sections to these competencies explicitly, since a rubric-aligned paper reads as a series of demonstrated skills rather than a general essay.

Before submitting, review the Applied Psychology and Changing Demographics grading rubric under the Settings icon in Canvas and confirm each competency is visibly addressed, not just implied.

• Choosing a case with no clear resolution. An open, unresolved complaint cannot supply Directive 3's "outcome" — choose a settled or adjudicated case.
• Reusing the ACME scenario. The assignment requires an actual, real case; the fictional Discussion Forum 2 scenario does not satisfy Directive 1.
• A vague type-of-discrimination answer. "The company discriminated" is not Directive 2's answer — name the protected category and, ideally, disparate treatment versus disparate impact.
• Skipping the thesis statement. Canvas names this as a specific checklist item, not general writing advice — an introduction without an explicit thesis sentence will be marked down.
• Fewer than two outside sources. The assignment requires at least 2 scholarly/credible sources beyond the course text — the case's own coverage plus one of the week's assigned articles is an efficient way to meet this.
• Ignoring the today's-practices analysis. A paper that stops at summarizing the case has completed only three of four directives; Directive 4 carries real analytical weight.
• Formatting slips. Missing the title-page spacing rule, wrong page count (body must be 3–4 pages, excluding title and references), or an incomplete references page are easy, avoidable point losses.