You're misinterpreting the Court's ruling here. It is not illegal to administer an IQ test [i]if having a high score on an IQ test is a bona fide occupational qualification[/i] to succeed at the job. In this case, Duke Power Company failed to show that applicants who scored higher on IQ tests were more likely to succeed on the job. At the same time, the IQ test had a disproportionately negative effect on a protected group (race) under Title VII. This meant that the IQ test was being used as a loophole to get around Civil Rights laws, not as a way to find and hire great employees. If a high IQ score were a bona fide occupational qualification (for example if it were required for a job helping to design IQ tests), it would have almost certainly been fine. However, corporations in the U.S. following the Civil Rights movement had a long and dirty history of looking for loopholes to get around Civil Rights laws -- your "freedom of association" ideal is noble and generally true, but simply fails to meet the balancing test when you're balancing that right against massive, systemic, and widespread discrimination by people in power (i.e., business executives) against entire groups of people based simply on their race, gender, religion, nationality, disability, or other factors that have absolutely nothing to do with whether or not they can do the job. However, it is important to note that [b]this entire debate is probably moot[/b]. Your example about a simple small business owner who only wants to associate with people who can juggle bowling balls is poignant, but not applicable here. Title VII is a federal law, and by statute applies only to companies with more than 15 employees -- i.e., medium and large corporations, not your offered image of a simple, small mom-and-pop shop with one or two partners or proprietors with some quirky eccentricities. Subject to state laws, of course, most small businesses have far fewer regulations on hiring practices for exactly the kinds of touchy feely reasons you're putting forth here. If a small business owner wants the freedom to eccentrically hire employees based on pointless and inapplicable criteria, that's probably okay, but he or she loses that privilege if they want to grow into a larger corporation. Seems like a fair tradeoff. FYI, not looking to get into a political or civil rights debate here, just wanted to correct an obvious misinterpretation of this case and federal case law. Do with this information what you will.