To anyone who has made a sensible, intelligent, non hysterical comment on the law of Title VII, there are some things I am having trouble comprehending.

Title VII, Disparate Impact section:

(k) Burden of proof in disparate impact cases
(1)(A) An unlawful employment practice based on disparate impact
is established under this subchapter only if -
(i) a complaining party demonstrates that a respondent uses a
particular employment practice that causes a disparate impact on
the basis of race, color, religion, sex, or national origin and
the respondent fails to demonstrate that the challenged practice
is job related for the position in question and consistent with
business necessity; or
(ii) the complaining party makes the demonstration described in
subparagraph (C) with respect to an alternative employment
practice and the respondent refuses to adopt such alternative
employment practice.

(B)(i) With respect to demonstrating that a particular employment
practice causes a disparate impact as described in subparagraph
(A)(i), the complaining party shall demonstrate that each
particular challenged employment practice causes a disparate
impact, except that if the complaining party can demonstrate to the
court that the elements of a respondent's decisionmaking process
are not capable of separation for analysis, the decisionmaking
process may be analyzed as one employment practice.
(ii) If the respondent demonstrates that a specific employment
practice does not cause the disparate impact, the respondent shall
not be required to demonstrate that such practice is required by
business necessity.
(C) The demonstration referred to by subparagraph (A)(ii) shall
be in accordance with the law as it existed on June 4, 1989, with
respect to the concept of "alternative employment practice".
(2) A demonstration that an employment practice is required by
business necessity may not be used as a defense against a claim of
intentional discrimination under this subchapter

Okay, my questions:

1) If both disparate impact and failure of criteria as job related or as relevant to doing the job are met, then the criteria is unlawful and the potential employee has been discriminated against. Correct?

2) What if only one condition was met? If the criteria had disparate impact on a group but the criteria-a written test, a field test, a multiple choice exam, what have you--was necessary for the job? If a test was a good measure of job nessacity but still had a disparate impact, wouldn't the test/employment practice and any applicant rejections from that still be lawful? I mean you have to prove that the practice has a) disparate impact on race, etc and 2) the practice is not necessary for doing the job. If you prove a but don't prove b, then is the practice still legal? Has the law been violated?

3) If not, then wouldn't that still be discriminatory? Could the criteria/employment practice still be legal and discriminatory? Even if the disparate impact is accidental?

4) Say with the NH test, the disparate impact was not because of the test but because of the probability that the larger applicant group would find more of its people acing the test than the smaller group because more applicants of that group took the test?

But back to the law: disparate impact has to be proven based on difference not probability. And even when it is, the law still is toothless if the employer demonstrates that the criteria was related to the job/measured how one would do. The employer could argue that even if disparate impact was there on a group, the criteria is still legal because it is relevant to the job. So wouldn't that be wrong? The practice is still discriminatory because it has a disparate impact but not under this law because the the practice is relevant for the job. Am I massively misreading here?

I'm not saying Ricci has a case because based on what I read, New Haven did not practice discrimination when it threw the test out. But I am asking about the completeness of Title VII. I guess the answer lies in the many cases that have refined this law, ones that I do not know about.