Spurlock, a black flight officer, applied for a job with United Airlines and was rejected on his lack of two of the job requirements: a college degree and a minimum of 500 hours of flight service. Spurlock charged that these two requirements were discriminatory towards blacks because the percentage of blacks in this country with college degrees was quantifiably less than the percentage of whites with college degrees, and since whites had been in the industry longer, they would have a better chance of having the minimum 500 hour requirement. United defended its requirements by stating that both of these selection criteria were job related. United showed statistics that claimed that applicants with a college degree were more apt to succeed in the class-room format of the pre-employment training, and 500 hours minimum was a reasonable predictor of employee success in the vigorous training program. Spurlock offered evidence on his behalf by showing that out of United's 5900 flight officers, only 9 were black; thus, there had to be some inherent discrimination in the selection process. Spurlock v. United Airlines, 475 F.2d 216 (10th Cir. 1972) - Is United correct or does Spurlock have a case of discrimination? Explain your answer

Spurlock established a prima facie against United Airlines for discrimination because only United employed only 9 black flight officers out of 5,900 flight offices in total.

But United was able to prove that it didn't discriminate based on color, instead it discriminated based on skills and that it was a job necessity to comply with the necessary skills in order to become a successful flight officer.

Based on previous experience United had established several skills with very high parameters that they considered necessary for a job applicant to possess. Out of the three basic requirements: 500 flight hours, a pilot license and a college degree, the last requirement was optional. But it was optional only in case the pilot had a lot of previous training and experience. This rule applied mostly to military jet pilots that wanted to start working for a civilian company but didn't have a college degree.

Since training a pilot is very expensive, United has to try to make sure that applicants are fit for the job. Any applicant that doesn't pass the company's training program results in heavy losses. The requirements were based on the companies previous records of applicants that approved their training programs and those that didn't.

In this case, the court ruled in United's favor because the job requirements were necessary for an applicant to perform properly and approve the training lessons required.