From Discrimination in Machine Learning to Discrimination in Law, Part 1: Disparate Treatment

Around 60 years ago, the U.S. Department of Justice Civil Rights Division was established for prohibiting discrimination based on protected attributes. Over these 60 years, they established a set of policies and guidelines to identify and penalize those who discriminate1. The widespread use of machine learning (ML) models in routine life has prompted researchers to begin studying the extent to which these models are discriminatory. However, some researcher are unaware that the legal system already has well established procedures for describing and proving discrimination in law. In this series of blog posts, we'll try to bridge this gap.