Christopher Griffin

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Journals/Publications

• Griffin, C. (2016). Explaining ADA employment discrimination charges over the business cycle. University of Cincinnati Law Review, 84(3).
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  Economists and legal scholars have long debated what effects, if any, the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) generated for people with disabilities. Empirical studies usually focus on the employerside impact of Title I, which prohibits adverse workplace decisions with respect to hiring, termination, and conditions of employment, and that literature has produced decidedly mixed findings. Largely missing from the conversation, however, has been an employee-focused account, one that describes when and why employees seek legal relief under Title L This Article addresses that deficiency by analyzing the submission of every ADA Title I charge to the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) between 1992 and 2011 as a function of the unemployment rate, political economy factors, state disability protection law, and disability type. Using statelevel panel data, I first show that a percentage point increase in the unemployment rate is associated with about 30% more charge submissions. Employees with disabilities are therefore more likely to file discrimination claims during recessionary periods, which causes the ADA to resemble an informal unemployment insurance mechanism. Second, the success rate is ambiguously tied to the unemployment rate. Depending on the definition of success, the datasuggest that charges submitted during recessionary periods tend to find less purchase at the EEOC. With respect to political economy explanations, states with Republican-controlled legislatures produce fewer Title I charges, but the statistical evidence is fairly weak. More interestingly, the opposite is true for states that enacted ADA-like statutes before 1990. Finally, no discernible differences in EEOC charge activity emerge according to the charging party's disability type. The Article concludes with a few research implications and policy recommendations for the EEOC and employers to address the employment of people with disabilities over the business cycle.
• Griffin, C., & Stein, M. (2015). Self-perception of disability and prospects for employment among U.S. veterans. Work, 50(1). doi:10.3233/wor-141929
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  BACKGROUND: Barriers to employment in the civilian labor force are increasingly difficult problems for returning veterans with disabilities. Reduced self-perception of disability status because of predominant military norms can be particularly harmful to reintegration efforts. OBJECTIVE: We analyze rates of self-identified and externally determined disability status among U.S. veterans. Evidence of a lower self-report rate would confirm the hypothesis that armed forces culture might hold back truly deserving veterans from seeking the benefits owed, including specialized employment training programs. METHODS: We use data from the Current Population Survey Veterans Supplement over the sample period 1995-2010 on disability status and associated demographic characteristics to present descriptive measures and limited statistical inference. RESULTS: Over the entire sample period, federal agencies considered 29% of the survey respondents to have a serviceconnected disability versus a 9% self-identification rate. The rate of more severe service-connected disabilities has risen steadily, while less drastic disability rates have fallen. Non-white respondents and those with lower education levels were less likely to self-identify. CONCLUSIONS: Large disparities in internal and external disability status identification raise questions about targeting soldiers re-entering the labor force. Employment policy should focus on overcoming negative cultural stereotypes and encouraging selfidentification.
• Donohue, J., Stein, M., Griffin, C., & Becker, S. (2011). Assessing Post-ADA Employment: Some Econometric Evidence and Policy Considerations. Journal of Empirical Legal Studies, 8(3). doi:10.1111/j.1740-1461.2011.01217.x
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  This article explores the relationship between the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) and the relative labor market outcomes for people with disabilities. Using individual-level longitudinal data from 1981 to 1996 derived from the previously unexploited Panel Study of Income Dynamics (PSID), we examine the possible effect of the ADA on (1) annual weeks worked; (2) annual earnings; and (3) hourly wages for a sample of 7,120 unique male household heads between the ages of 21 and 65, as well as for a subset of 1,437 individuals appearing every year from 1981 to 1996. Our analysis of the larger sample suggests the ADA had a negative impact on the employment levels of disabled persons relative to nondisabled persons but no impact on relative earnings. However, our evaluation of the restricted sample raises questions about these findings. Using these data, we find little evidence of adverse effects on weeks worked but strong evidence of wage declines for the disabled, albeit declines beginning in 1986, well before the ADA's passage. These results therefore cast doubt on the adverse ADA-related impacts found in previous studies, particularly Acemoglu and Angrist (2001). The conflicting narratives that emerge from our analysis shed new light on, but also counsel caution in reaching final conclusions about, the impact of the ADA on employment outcomes for people with disabilities. © 2011, Cornell Law School and Wiley Periodicals, Inc.

Proceedings Publications

• Yacoby, Y., Green, B., Griffin, C., & Doshi-Velez, F. (2022). “If it didn’t happen, why would I change my decision?”: How Judges Respond to Counterfactual Explanations for the Public Safety Assessment. In 10th AAAI Conference on Human Computation and Crowdsourcing, HCOMP 2022, 10.
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  Many researchers and policymakers have expressed excitement about algorithmic explanations enabling more fair and responsible decision-making. However, recent experimental studies have found that explanations do not always improve human use of algorithmic advice. In this study, we shed light on how people interpret and respond to counterfactual explanations(CFEs)—explanations that show how a model’s output would change with marginal changes to its input(s)—in the context of pretrial risk assessment instruments (PRAIs).We ran think-aloud trials with eight sitting U.S. state court judges, providing them with recommendations from a PRAI that includes CFEs. We found that the CFEs did not alter the judges’ decisions. At first, judges misinterpreted the counter factualsas real—rather than hypothetical—changes to defendants. Once judges understood what the counter factualsmeant, they ignored them, stating their role is only to make decisions regarding the actual defendant in question. The judges also expressed a mix of reasons for ignoring or following the advice of the PRAI without CFEs. These results add to the literature detailing the unexpected ways in which people respond to algorithms and explanations. They also highlight new challenges associated with improving human-algorithm collaborations through explanations.

Presentations

• Griffin, C. (2025).

  The Most Closely Watched Branch: The Federal Judiciary in the Trump Era

  . Arizona Association of Defense Counsel 2025 Annual Meeting. Phoenix, AZ: Arizona Association of Defense Counsel.
• Griffin, C. (2024, May).

  The Roberts Court: Retrenchment on Race, Religion, and Regulation 

  . Arizona Association of Defense Counsel 2024 Annual Meeting. Phoenix, AZ: Arizona Association of Defense Counsel.
• Griffin, C. L. (2022, September). "What Works in People-Centred Services?". 2002 OECD Global Access to Justice Roundtable. Riga, Latvia: OECD.
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  Skip to 5:28:30 for my presentation

Others

• An, S., Griffin, C., & Sandvik, J. J. (2025, October).

  Recruitment and Retention of Arizona's Detention Officers

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• Sandvik, J. J., Griffin, C., An, S., Dow, D., & Barrera, S. (2024, January).

  Arizona Fire Service and Law Enforcement Recruitment Survey

  . https://morrisoninstitute.asu.edu/sites/default/files/2024-01/1 - Arizona Fire Service and Law Enforcement Recruitment Survey 2024.pdf
• Sandvik, J. J., Griffin, C., An, S., Dow, D., & Barrera, S. (2024, January). Arizona Law Enforcement Retention Survey. https://morrisoninstitute.asu.edu/sites/default/files/2024-01/2%20-%20Arizona%20Law%20Enforcement%20Retention%20Survey%202024.pdf