Job seekers ask court to certify class action against Workday's AI screening tools
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The News
Job seekers in the closely watched Mobley v. Workday litigation have asked a U.S. federal judge in San Francisco to certify their employment-discrimination case against Workday as a class action, Reuters reported on 21 September. The plaintiffs — led by Derek Mobley, a Black applicant over 40 who says he was rejected from more than 100 jobs at companies using Workday's AI screening tools — want four subclasses certified covering African American, female, over-40, and disabled applicants. They argue Workday's tools disproportionately screen out protected groups by training on companies' existing workforce data and so perpetuating past bias. Workday, which says two-thirds of the Fortune 500 use its software and that its tools “only look at job qualifications,” denies wrongdoing and says the plaintiffs cannot meet the burden for class treatment. Judge Rita Lin, who let the disparate-impact theory proceed in 2024, scheduled a class-certification hearing for 9 March 2027.
Why It Matters
This is the case TA leaders have been watching from the corner of their eye, and it just got bigger. The central question — whether an AI vendor, not just the employer, can be liable for disparate impact — would, if certified, hand plaintiffs a template to sue the software maker and its customers together. With more than 80% of U.S. employers reportedly using AI in hiring, and Workday's tools touching 356 million applications and 27 million offers in 2024 alone, a certified class reframes AI screening from a procurement decision into a shared legal exposure. The federal government has stepped back from disparate-impact enforcement; private litigants have not.
Taking Action
All action is situated in your corporate context. These are starting points, not prescriptions — choose what fits.
Connect
Who to talk with in your enterprise
Brief your legal counsel and head of talent acquisition on the case's trajectory — class certification in March 2027 is the next hard milestone. If you use Workday Recruiting or any AI screening tool, ask the vendor how its model is trained, what data it draws on, and what disparate-impact testing it runs and can share with you in writing.
Inspect
What to take a closer look at
Pull the documentation your AI screening vendor supplied on bias testing and training data. Check whether your contracts hold the vendor liable for discriminatory outcomes or indemnify you — and whether you have audit rights over the model. Where you can, review your own rejection-rate data by protected group; that is the evidence a plaintiff would request first.
Reflect
What to think about more deeply
You bought an AI screening tool to find the best candidates faster. If the court decides the vendor is on the hook for who the tool filters out, who is accountable for the filter you switched on — the algorithm, the vendor, or the person who clicked “deploy”?