Could the hiring results have happened by random chance? Or is that statistically impossible?
In the last 5 years, StarComm Corporation had 1,000 candidates and hired 200 people. Of the 1,000 candidates, 400 were women (40%). Of the 200 people hired, only 20 were women (10%).
If the hiring results haven't happened by chance, they must have happened by "purposeful exclusion."
Statisticians determine that the probability of getting these hiring results by chance is essentially zero. Lawyers can then conclude that the low number of women hired isn't accidental, but purposeful in some way.
If the employer is aware of this "purposeful exclusion," they show "reckless disregard" for the rights of individual candidates not to be discriminated against.
StarComm Corporation is now aware that their hiring practice discriminates against women. So lawyers can argue that SCC violated the rights of women candidates to have a fair shot (without discrimination) in the hiring process.
The burden of proof shifts to the employer to prove why hiring requirements are valid and necessary.
The burden is now on StarComm Corporation to get its hiring process into legal shape OR to prove why its hiring process has to be the way it is. It's no longer the job of individual women candidates to prove they are up against an unfair process.