Yes, a lawsuit has been filed alleging that HireVue’s artificial intelligence technology discriminated against a Deaf, Indigenous job applicant. In March 2025, the ACLU filed a complaint with the Colorado Civil Rights Division and the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) on behalf of the applicant, who was seeking a job with Intuit, the company that owns HireVue. The complaint alleges that when the woman requested CART (Communication Access Realtime Translation) captioning as an accessibility accommodation to understand interview instructions and questions, Intuit denied her request.
Instead, she was evaluated using HireVue’s AI interview system, which provided feedback suggesting she should “practice active listening”—a comment that the ACLU argues shows how the AI disadvantaged her because of her disability. This complaint raises important questions about whether AI-powered hiring tools can inadvertently (or deliberately) discriminate against people with disabilities, even when those tools don’t rely on visual analysis. The case centers on whether speech recognition systems underlying HireVue’s technology perform worse for Deaf applicants and whether that bias violates federal and state disability laws. This article explains what the complaint alleges, how the AI system reportedly discriminated, what laws are at issue, and what this means for job applicants facing similar situations.
Table of Contents
- What Specific Allegations Does the Complaint Make Against Intuit and HireVue?
- How Did the Denial of Accommodation Create the Alleged Discrimination?
- What Disability Laws Does This Complaint Claim Were Violated?
- Why Do Speech Recognition Systems Perform Worse for Deaf Applicants?
- What Is HireVue’s History With Bias Complaints and Recent Changes?
- What Happens Next in This Complaint, and What Are the Potential Outcomes?
- What Does This Case Mean for Job Applicants and the Future of AI Hiring Tools?
What Specific Allegations Does the Complaint Make Against Intuit and HireVue?
The ACLU complaint, filed on March 19, 2025, targets two defendants: Intuit, the employer conducting the interview, and HireVue, the company that developed and provided the AI assessment technology. The complaint alleges violations of three laws: the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA), Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 (which prohibits employment discrimination), and the Colorado Anti-Discrimination Act (CADA). These are comprehensive discrimination laws that cover hiring practices and require employers to provide reasonable accommodations to job applicants with disabilities. The core allegation is straightforward: when the applicant requested a standard accessibility accommodation—real-time captioning to understand spoken interview content—Intuit denied the request and proceeded with an AI-based assessment instead. The complaint argues this denial violated her rights under the ADA.
Beyond that, the complaint alleges that HireVue’s AI system itself contained bias that disadvantaged her evaluation. The AI provided feedback suggesting she “practice active listening,” which the ACLU contends demonstrates how the system evaluated her through the lens of her hearing disability rather than her actual qualifications for the job. Research cited in the complaint shows a broader pattern: speech recognition systems underlying HireVue’s technology perform worse when analyzing speech from Deaf applicants and from non-white speakers. This means the AI was likely to misinterpret or undervalue her responses, leading to lower assessment scores. This is not speculation—it’s a documented technical bias in how speech recognition technology works across the industry.
How Did the Denial of Accommodation Create the Alleged Discrimination?
The sequence of events matters for understanding the discrimination claim. First, the applicant made a straightforward request: she needed CART captioning to participate in the interview process. CART is a real, established accommodation for Deaf individuals in professional settings. It involves a certified captioner typing everything said during an interview so that the participant can read the conversation in real-time. Providing CART would have leveled the playing field—the applicant could have understood all instructions and questions without relying on the AI system’s speech recognition. Intuit allegedly denied this accommodation and instead required the applicant to participate in HireVue’s AI interview system. This is significant because it meant she was placed in a position where she had to rely on a technology that was not designed with her disability in mind.
Without captioning, she could not reliably understand what the interview was asking. The feedback about “practicing active listening” reveals the problem: the AI system was evaluating her based on its own inability to recognize her speech and responses correctly, not on her actual communication abilities or job qualifications. However, HireVue and Intuit deny these allegations. HireVue’s CEO Jeremy Friedman stated that the complaint “is entirely without merit” and claimed that Intuit “did not use a HireVue AI-based assessment” in this case. Intuit similarly denies the allegations and states that it provides reasonable accommodations to all applicants. Both companies contest the factual basis of the complaint, so the allegations have not been proven. The complaint is currently under investigation by regulatory agencies, and the outcome remains to be determined.
What Disability Laws Does This Complaint Claim Were Violated?
The complaint invokes three separate legal frameworks, each of which provides different protections against employment discrimination. The Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) is the primary federal law protecting people with disabilities. Under the ADA, employers must provide reasonable accommodations to qualified employees and job applicants with disabilities, unless doing so would cause undue hardship. Refusing to provide CART captioning—a widely available and relatively low-cost accommodation—would likely violate the ADA if proven. Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 is a broader employment discrimination law that requires employers to treat employees and applicants fairly regardless of protected characteristics. While Title VII doesn’t explicitly address disability, the complaint likely references it in connection with the broader pattern of discrimination and the requirement that hiring practices not have a disparate impact on protected groups.
In this case, if HireVue’s AI system systematically underestimates or disadvantages applicants with hearing disabilities, that could constitute a form of employment discrimination under Title VII. The Colorado Anti-Discrimination Act (CADA) is the state-level equivalent to federal disability protections. Colorado, like most states, has its own disability discrimination law that often mirrors or exceeds federal protections. Filing the complaint with both the Colorado Civil Rights Division and the EEOC means the applicant is pursuing remedies through both state and federal channels. This is a common strategy because state agencies sometimes move faster or apply stricter standards than the federal government. Together, these three legal frameworks create multiple pathways for the ACLU to argue that discrimination occurred.
Why Do Speech Recognition Systems Perform Worse for Deaf Applicants?
Speech recognition technology works by analyzing audio patterns and converting them to text or scoring them based on characteristics like tone, pace, and clarity. The problem is that these systems are typically trained on large datasets of “typical” speech—which means speech from predominantly hearing, often non-diverse groups. When a Deaf person uses speech-to-text technology or participates in an AI evaluation system, the system may struggle because it was not trained to recognize the acoustic patterns of Deaf speech. Additionally, speech recognition systems may be trained to penalize or undervalue characteristics common in Deaf speech, such as different intonation patterns or pacing. In HireVue’s case, the AI system was apparently evaluating not just what the applicant said but how she said it.
If the system’s training data didn’t adequately represent Deaf speakers, it would naturally perform worse at evaluating a Deaf applicant. The feedback suggesting she “practice active listening” is a symptom of this problem: the AI was trying to teach her to speak in a way that matched its training data, rather than evaluating her communication abilities on their own merits. Research cited in the ACLU complaint extends this finding beyond Deaf applicants to include non-white speakers. Speech recognition systems have well-documented bias against accents and speech patterns associated with non-white communities. This means HireVue’s AI could be discriminating simultaneously against people with disabilities and people of color. The combination of these biases compounds the problem—as in this case, where the applicant was both Deaf and Indigenous.
What Is HireVue’s History With Bias Complaints and Recent Changes?
HireVue has faced criticism over AI bias for years. In January 2025, just two months before the ACLU complaint was filed, HireVue announced it would discontinue its reliance on “facial analysis” to assess job candidates. This was a significant shift following ongoing litigation and public criticism about whether the company’s facial recognition tool was biased. The timing is notable because it suggests HireVue was already under pressure to change its practices, yet the new complaint alleges problems with the speech recognition component of its system—not just the facial analysis. The facial analysis controversy traces back further.
In 2019, the Electronic Privacy Information Center (EPIC) filed a complaint with the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) against HireVue, challenging its AI tools as unfair and deceptive trade practices. EPIC argued that HireVue’s facial analysis assessments were unproven, invasive, and prone to bias. This earlier complaint raised many of the same concerns now being raised about speech recognition: that the technology makes judgments about a person’s suitability for employment based on characteristics that may be biased or entirely unrelated to job performance. The fact that HireVue is discontinuing one problematic technology while facing new allegations about another suggests that the company’s AI tools may have systemic bias issues that go beyond a single feature. However, it’s also worth noting that the company has made some effort to address criticism by abandoning facial analysis. Whether that move is sufficient to address the speech recognition bias alleged in the current complaint remains to be seen.
What Happens Next in This Complaint, and What Are the Potential Outcomes?
The complaint is currently under investigation by two regulatory agencies: the Colorado Civil Rights Division (a state agency) and the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (a federal agency). These agencies typically follow a standard investigation process. First, they will notify the respondents (Intuit and HireVue) of the complaint and allow them to respond. Both companies have already publicly stated they deny the allegations. Next, the agencies will gather evidence, which may include the actual interview materials, the AI assessment scores, communications about the accommodation request, and expert testimony about AI bias in speech recognition.
If the agencies find probable cause that discrimination occurred, the case may proceed to conciliation, where the agencies try to broker a settlement between the parties. If conciliation fails, the case could go to hearing before an administrative judge, or the ACLU might pursue litigation in court. At this stage (early investigation), it’s too early to predict the outcome or whether a settlement will be reached. This is an active complaint filed in March 2025, not yet a resolved case with a settlement amount or judgment. The complaint process at the EEOC and state civil rights agencies typically takes months to years. During this time, the applicant has the right to pursue her own lawsuit if she chooses, and the regulatory agencies’ findings may support her case. If she prevails, potential remedies could include back pay, front pay (compensation for future lost wages), compensatory damages for emotional distress, attorney fees, and injunctive relief requiring the company to change its practices.
What Does This Case Mean for Job Applicants and the Future of AI Hiring Tools?
This complaint is part of a broader reckoning with AI bias in hiring technology. As more companies deploy AI to screen resumes, conduct interviews, and assess candidates, questions about whether these systems discriminate are becoming more urgent. The HireVue complaint specifically highlights the problem of combining accessibility denials with biased AI systems. Even if HireVue’s AI were perfectly unbiased, the refusal to provide CART captioning would itself be discrimination. But the combination—denying an accommodation and then using a biased AI system—creates a compounded problem.
For job applicants, this case underscores the importance of knowing your rights. If you have a disability and an employer denies a reasonable accommodation request, that is likely illegal under the ADA. If you are then evaluated by an AI system that you believe was biased, you have the right to file a complaint with the EEOC or your state civil rights agency. Keep records of accommodation requests, denials, and any feedback or scores you receive from AI systems. For employers and technology companies, the case serves as a warning that deploying AI hiring tools without thoroughly testing for bias—and without ensuring proper accommodation processes—creates legal liability. The trend is moving toward greater scrutiny of these tools, not less.