Short answer. The 2% rule is not a blanket rule allowing small groups to disappear from the audit. It permits an independent auditor to exclude an under-2% category from the required impact-ratio calculations covered by §5-301(d). If excluded, the public summary must still include the auditor's justification plus the number of applicants and the applicable selection or scoring rate.
What may be excluded
The rule is limited to the required impact-ratio calculations identified in §5-301(d). It does not say that the underlying category should be erased from the dataset or ignored entirely.
Who decides
The text says an independent auditor may exclude the category. That makes exclusion a professional auditor decision, not an automatic software rule triggered whenever a computed share falls below 2%.
What still must be disclosed
- The auditor's justification for the exclusion.
- The number of applicants in the excluded category.
- The applicable selection rate or scoring rate for that category.
Example
If a category represents 1.6% of the audit dataset, the auditor may determine that §5-301(d) should be used for the required impact-ratio calculation. The category does not simply vanish: the exclusion and required supporting information must remain visible in the summary of results.
What the 2% rule does not mean
- It is not a universal minimum sample-size rule.
- It does not establish that a small group is statistically irrelevant for every other legal or analytical purpose.
- It does not convert an impact ratio into a pass/fail determination.
Last legally reviewed: September 27, 2026.