Big Data analytics firm Palantir Technologies Inc. has responded to allegations that it discriminates against Asians in its hiring process by claiming the methodology used by the U.S. Department of Labor is incorrect, among other things.

The company was accused in September of systematically rejecting Asian applicants in the resume screening and telephone interview phases even when they were as qualified as white applicants.

Palantir lodged a response to the allegations on Friday, according to Forbes, claiming that no discrimination took place and that the Labor Department’s statistical analysis is faulty because the suit addressed only three out of 44 jobs Palantir hired employees for within the analysis period. Further, the company claims that the analysis counted all resumes submitted, including unsolicited applications from sites like Craigslist, even if they were from people without skills required for the job.

The company went on to note that 36 percent of those eventually hired across all the job openings studied by the Labor Department were Asian, a rate higher than that of the percentage of qualified employees in the labor market. Overall, Palantir said that 37 percent of its product engineering team and 25 percent of its total workforce is Asian, meaning that Asian employees were over represented in the company. Of note, Asian people only make up 4.5 percent of the overall population in the United States according to figures from the 2010 census.

Faulty data

While an over-representation of Asian workers in the company as a whole does not rule out discrimination in the three jobs studied by the Department of Labor, the question of the use of three positions out of 44 studied does suggest selective use of figures. A random selection does also not necessarily apply when accessing job applicants, as The Daily Caller rightly points out: “Palantir does not select its employees based on random chance. Who does? Does the Labor Department randomly select its employees out of everyone who applied and met the minimum qualifications? (If so, that might explain some things).”

Palantir does have particular oversight requirements when it comes to hiring practices because many of its contracts are with the federal government, including the Federal Bureau of Investigation, the U.S. Department of Defense, the Department of Homeland Security, the Department of Justice, the Securities and Exchange Commission, the U.S. Army and the U.S. Special Operations Command. It’s because of that oversight that the company was audited.

In the event it is found to discriminate, the Office of Federal Contract Compliance Programs may request that all contracts the company currently holds with government agencies are canceled. It also could ban it from being able to obtain further government contracts in the future, which makes this serious business.

Image credit: Palantir