What do I do about the kinds of conclusions that I can make? First, investigators do not make legal conclusions. Judges make conclusions of law. Since we are not judges and we are not juries, we do not make conclusions of law. We can talk about what is ‘more likely than not,’ and it is likely that people who do make law, namely judges and juries, will believe our position about something being more likely than not if we conduct thorough and unbiased investigations. We don’t ever say someone was discriminated against, but we would say someone “reported “discrimination.” We could say three people also perceived “discrimination” to have occurred in exactly the same way and, as a result, it is more likely than not that it was reasonable when they believed that they were being “discriminated” against. You can also make statements of fact that go to things like “discrimination” too, without making legal conclusions. I can conclusively say that people of color made more or less money. That is a calculable thing that I can make a conclusory statement about. I cannot then say because people of color made less money, they were “discriminated” against because that’s a conclusion of law. However, I think anyone making decisions with a report that says people of color got paid less, and most people felt like they were discriminated against, will make a determination that discrimination was involved.
