Document ID: s3://data.kl3m.ai/documents/govinfo/USCOURTS/USCOURTS-caDC-13-05153/USCOURTS-caDC-13-05153-0/pdf.json

Parties Involved:
John F. Kerry
Appellee
William E. Shea
Appellant

Document Text:

United States Court of Appeals

FOR THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA CIRCUIT

Argued January 20, 2015 Decided August 7, 2015

No. 13-5153

WILLIAM E. SHEA,

APPELLANT

v.

JOHN F. KERRY, SECRETARY OF STATE, IN HIS OFFICIAL 

CAPACITY,

APPELLEE

Appeal from the United States District Court

for the District of Columbia

(No. 1:02-cv-00577)

Joshua P. Thompson argued the cause for appellant. 

With him on the briefs were Meriem L. Hubbard and Ralph 

W. Kasarda.

Darrell C. Valdez, Assistant U.S. Attorney, argued the

cause for appellee. With him on the brief were Ronald C. 

Machen Jr., U.S. Attorney, and R. Craig Lawrence, Assistant 

U.S. Attorney.

Before: ROGERS and SRINIVASAN, Circuit Judges, and 

WILLIAMS, Senior Circuit Judge.

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Opinion for the Court filed by Circuit Judge SRINIVASAN.

Concurring opinion filed by Senior Circuit Judge

WILLIAMS.

SRINIVASAN, Circuit Judge: From 1990 to 1992, the 

State Department had in place a hiring plan aimed to increase 

racial diversity among the officer corps in the United States 

Foreign Service. William Shea, a white Foreign Service

Officer, brings suit alleging that the hiring plan violated Title 

VII. Although Shea challenges a plan that ceased to exist

over twenty years ago, he joined the Foreign Service during 

the two years the plan was in effect. He alleges that, because 

of the plan, he entered the Foreign Service at a lower level

than would have been the case had he been a minority 

applicant.

The district court viewed Shea’s claim to be controlled by

the Supreme Court’s decisions in Johnson v. Transportation 

Agency, Santa Clara County, California, 480 U.S. 616 

(1987), and United Steelworkers of America, AFL-CIO-CLC

v. Weber, 443 U.S. 193 (1979). Those decisions upheld 

employers’ affirmative action plans against Title VII 

challenges. The district court, following Johnson and Weber, 

granted summary judgment in favor of the State Department. 

We agree with the district court and affirm its judgment.

I.

A.

The United States Foreign Service, a branch of the 

United States Department of State, works through its Foreign 

Service Officers to “advocate American foreign policy, 

protect American citizens, and promote American interests 

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throughout the world.” Taylor v. Rice, 451 F.3d 898, 900 

(D.C. Cir. 2006). Foreign Service Officers “perform 

traditional diplomatic responsibilities, including trade 

promotion, political and economic reporting, and consular 

services and protection.” Id. 

In 1990, Shea applied for an entry-level Foreign Service 

Officer position. At the time, the Foreign Service career 

ladder consisted of six pay grades, ranging from FS-06 (entry 

level) to FS-01 (upper level), with the Senior Foreign Service 

(SFS) a step above FS-01. The Department generally filled 

vacancies at more senior ranks through internal promotions 

rather than external hires. Applicants from outside the agency 

thus ordinarily entered the Officer corps only at the junior 

levels (FS-04, -05 and -06 levels). In May 1992, Shea joined 

the Foreign Service at the FS-05 level.

B.

In the years preceding Shea’s application to the Foreign 

Service, the State Department faced significant scrutiny about 

the lack of diversity of the Foreign Service Officer corps. In 

1985, Congress perceived an underrepresentation of 

minorities among Foreign Service Officers. Congress 

therefore enacted legislation directing the Department to 

“develop . . . a plan designed to increase significantly the 

number of members of minority groups . . . in the Foreign 

Service,” with a “particular emphasis on achieving significant 

increases in the numbers of minority group members . . . in 

the mid-levels of the Foreign Service,” the FS-02 and -03 

levels. Foreign Relations Authorization Act, Fiscal Years 

1986 and 1987, Pub. L. No. 99-93, § 152(a), (b), 99 Stat. 405, 

428 (1985). 

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Two years later, Congress remained unsatisfied. 

Concluding that the State Department “ha[d] not been 

successful in [its] efforts . . . to recruit and retain members of 

minority groups,” Congress instructed the Department to 

“substantially increase [its] efforts” to ensure that the 

“Foreign Service becomes truly representative of the 

American people throughout all levels of the Foreign 

Service.” Foreign Relations Authorization Act, Fiscal Years 

1988 and 1989, Pub. L. No. 100-204, § 183(a), (a)(1), (b)(1), 

101 Stat. 1331, 1364 (1987). Congress specifically directed 

the Department to “ensure that those [efforts] effectively 

address the need to promote increased numbers of

qualified . . . members of minority groups into the senior 

levels of the Foreign Service.” Id. § 183(b)(2). 

Congress did not stand alone in raising concerns about 

the diversity of the Foreign Service Officer corps. In 1989, 

the General Accounting Office (now known as the 

Governmental Accountability Office) released a report 

entitled “State Department: Minorities and Women Are 

Underrepresented in the Foreign Service.” The 1989 GAO 

Report evaluated the Department’s existing efforts, finding 

that, while “[p]rogress ha[d] been mixed” in increasing 

diversity,

[m]inorities . . . were still substantially 

underrepresented when compared with civilian 

labor force data that the EEOC ha[d] issued to 

measure federal agencies. . . .

In mid-level ranks of the officer corps, 

minority male representation ha[d] increased, 

but minority and white women ha[d] made less 

progress. In State’s Senior Foreign Service 

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positions, underrepresentation of minorities 

and white women [wa]s still pervasive.

U.S. Gen. Accounting Office, State Department: Minorities 

and Women Are Underrepresented in the Foreign Service 15

(1989) (1989 GAO Report). 

The 1989 GAO Report compared the Department’s 1987 

minority workforce with the racial breakdown of the 

American population possessing the skills required for 

Foreign Service employment. That comparison indicated that 

the Department generally fell short of “full representation”—

the level at which a minority group would make up the same 

proportion of the workforce as its proportion of the American 

population possessing the relevant skills—at mid- and seniorlevel Foreign Service Officer positions, as follows: for 

women of each defined minority group at the SFS, FS-01, 

-02, and -03 levels; black, Native American and native 

Alaskan men at the SFS level; Hispanic men at the SFS and 

FS-01 levels; and Asian and Pacific Islander men at the SFS, 

FS-01, -02, and -03 levels. 

The Civil Service Subcommittee of the House Committee 

on Post Office and Civil Service convened hearings focusing 

on the 1989 GAO Report’s findings and on the results of two 

other studies—the Bremer Study Group Report 

(commissioned by the Secretary of State on his own initiative) 

and the Thomas Commission Report (mandated by Congress 

as part of the 1988-1989 Foreign Relations Authorization 

Act). Representative Gerry Sikorski, the Subcommittee’s 

Chairman, interpreted those two studies to “disclose[] major 

problems of discrimination against . . . minorities in the 

Foreign Service.” Underrepresentation of Women and 

Minorities in the Foreign Service: Hearing Before the 

Subcomm. on the Civil Serv. of the H. Comm. on Post Office 

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& Civil Serv., 101st Cong. 3 (1989) (1989 Subcomm. 

Hearing). Those studies, he concluded, revealed that

“management of the U.S. Foreign Service [was] seriously 

flawed.” The Department of State in the 21st Century: Joint 

Hearing Before the Subcomm. on Int’l Ops. of the H. Comm. 

on Foreign Affairs & the Subcomm. on the Civil Serv. of the 

H. Comm. on Post Office & Civil Serv., 101st Cong. 6 (1989) 

(1989 Joint Hearing).

As of 1989, minorities remained underrepresented in

Foreign Service Officer roles. Id. And that was after years of 

concerns voiced by Congress and repeated warnings from the 

Equal Employment Opportunity Commission “that the State 

Department ha[d] not had an effective . . . plan or program for 

overcoming the underrepresentation [of minorities] in the 

Foreign Service.” U.S. Gen. Accounting Office, Testimony: 

Underrepresentation of Minorities and Women in the Foreign 

Service, Statement of Joseph Kelley, Director of Security and

International Relations Issues, National Security and 

International Affairs Division, Before the Subcommittee on 

Civil Service, Committee on Post Office and Civil Service, 

United States House of Representatives 1 (1989). The 

Department undertook various measures in response,

including creating a special hiring path for minorities into the 

Foreign Service’s mid- and upper-level ranks—the 

affirmative action plan in issue here.

C.

At the time of Shea’s entry into the Foreign Service, the 

State Department operated two distinct programs that enabled 

applicants to bypass the Department’s usual preference for 

internal promotions and allowed the direct hiring of outside 

applicants into mid- and upper-level (FS-01, -02 and -03)

positions. One program, the Career Candidate Program 

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(CCP), was race-neutral. The other program, the 1990-92 

Affirmative Action Plan (1990-92 Plan), targeted minority 

applicants.

Under the CCP, the Department accepted certain 

applications from outside candidates for FS-01, -02, and -03 

positions. But the Department, in accordance with its general 

preference for filling vacancies through internal promotions, 

could hire an otherwise viable outside applicant through the 

CCP only if the Department issued a “certificate of need” 

attesting that no internal candidates could fill that vacancy. 

The Department would then consider the outside applicant

consistent with its typical hiring procedures. In the absence 

of a certificate of need, no outside candidate could receive an 

offer of employment through the CCP. 

Under the race-conscious 1990-92 Plan, the Department

provided a special path for minorities seeking direct 

placement as outside hires into the FS-01, -02, and -03 ranks. 

The 1990-92 Plan gave one—and only one—advantage to 

minority applicants: an automatic waiver of the CCP’s 

certificate-of-need requirement for “American Indians, Alaska 

Native[s], Asians and Pacific Islanders, Blacks, and 

Hispanics.” U.S. Dep’t of State, Foreign Service Mid-Level 

Hiring Program Highlights 1 (1989). Apart from the

certificate-of-need waiver at the threshold stage, the 1990-92 

Plan granted no benefits to minorities in the course of the 

hiring process. That process was rigorous: The “vast 

majority” of minority candidates applying through the 1990-

92 Plan “were eliminated from competition at the preliminary 

review stage.” Id.

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D.

In 2001, Shea filed an administrative grievance with the 

State Department. Among other claims, he argued that he

started at a lower pay grade by virtue of the 1990-92 Plan’s 

preferential treatment of minority applicants, infringing his 

rights under Title VII as well as the equal protection 

component of the Due Process Clause of the Fifth 

Amendment. The Foreign Service Grievance Board 

dismissed his complaint for lack of jurisdiction, and Shea then 

filed suit in the United States District Court for the District of 

Columbia.

Shea’s case initially traveled back and forth between the 

district court and this court on the question of whether his 

Title VII and equal protection claims had been timely filed. 

(As to the remaining claims, Shea did not appeal their 

dismissal.) See Shea v. Kerry, 961 F. Supp. 2d 17, 22-25 

(D.D.C. 2013). Ultimately, after Congress enacted the Lilly 

Ledbetter Fair Pay Act of 2009, Pub. L. No. 111-2, 123 Stat. 

5, the district court found that Shea’s Title VII claims were 

timely under the Ledbetter Act but that his equal protection 

claims were untimely. See id. at 24, 29 & n.3.

Proceeding to the merits, the district court granted 

summary judgment to the State Department. Id. at 55. The 

court first determined that the Supreme Court’s Title VII 

affirmative action decisions in Weber, 443 U.S. 193, and 

Johnson, 480 U.S. 616, controlled the analysis. Those 

decisions, the district court explained, called for application of 

the three-step burden-shifting framework articulated by the 

Court in McDonnell Douglas Corp. v. Green, 411 U.S. 792 

(1973). Shea, 961 F. Supp. 2d at 27-29. 

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At the first step, the district court concluded that Shea 

had established a prima facie case of discrimination in 

violation of Title VII. Id. at 31-33. Turning to the second 

step, the court found that the Department had proffered

evidence that, if accepted as true, permitted the conclusion 

that the Department had acted pursuant to a lawful affirmative 

action plan. Id. at 33-44. Finally, at the third step, the district 

court considered whether Shea had shown that the affirmative 

action plan was, in fact, unlawful. The court rejected Shea’s 

proffer of lay statistical evidence to that end, and thus 

concluded that he had failed to raise any genuine issue 

concerning the validity of the Department’s affirmative action 

plan. The court therefore granted summary judgment in favor 

of the Department. Id. at 55.

II.

We review de novo the district court’s grant of summary 

judgment on Shea’s Title VII claim. Holcomb v. Powell, 433 

F.3d 889, 895 (D.C. Cir. 2006). Before addressing the merits 

of that claim, we first assure ourselves of Shea’s standing to 

bring it. Although the Department raises no challenge to his 

standing, “it is well established that the court has an 

independent obligation to assure that standing exists, 

regardless of whether it is challenged by any of the parties.” 

Summers v. Earth Island Inst., 555 U.S. 488, 499 (2009).

To demonstrate his standing, Shea must show, inter alia, 

that he suffered an injury in fact that is both “concrete and 

particularized” and “actual or imminent, not conjectural or 

hypothetical.” Lujan v. Defenders of Wildlife, 504 U.S. 555, 

560 (1992) (quotation marks omitted). In the context of an 

employment discrimination claim, a plaintiff may claim an

injury in fact from the purported denial of the ability to 

compete on an equal footing against other candidates for a 

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job. See Ne. Fla. Chapter of the Associated Gen. Contractors 

of Am. v. City of Jacksonville, Fla., 508 U.S. 656, 666 (1993); 

Cerrato v. S.F. Cmty. Coll. Dist., 26 F.3d 968, 976 (9th Cir. 

1994). Because the injury lies in the denial of an equal 

opportunity to compete, not the denial of the job itself, we do 

not inquire into the plaintiff’s qualifications (or lack thereof)

when assessing standing. See Regents of Univ. of Cal. v. 

Bakke, 438 U.S. 265, 280-81 & n.14 (1978).

Shea alleges that the 1990-92 Plan denied him the 

opportunity to compete on an equal basis by extending a 

preference to minority candidates that was unavailable to him: 

the ability to gain consideration for entry to a mid-level 

position without any certificate of need. Shea could have 

sought direct mid-level placement through the race-neutral 

CCP program, however. He did not do so, instead applying 

only for an entry-level FS-05 position. There is thus a 

question whether Shea suffered an actual or imminent injury

as a result of the 1990-92 Plan, or whether his injury was 

merely hypothetical. 

The Supreme Court’s decision in Gratz v. Bollinger, 539 

U.S. 244 (2003), found the existence of standing in parallel 

circumstances. In Gratz, one of the plaintiffs, Patrick 

Hamacher, sought to challenge the University of Michigan’s 

consideration of race in its undergraduate transfer admissions. 

At the time of the suit, Hamacher had yet to apply to transfer 

to Michigan. Indeed, the Court’s opinion indicated that he 

would not do so as long as Michigan’s race-conscious 

admissions program remained in place: Hamacher instead 

declared that he “intend[ed] to transfer to the University of 

Michigan when [it] cease[d] the use of race as an admissions 

preference.” Id. at 261 (emphasis added). The Supreme 

Court sua sponte questioned Hamacher’s standing to bring his 

challenge, ultimately concluding that he had shown an injury

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in fact. The Court reasoned that, because of Hamacher’s 

stated intent to transfer should Michigan change its policy, he 

had established standing. Id. at 261-62.

Gratz controls our inquiry. Like Hamacher, Shea alleges 

that he possessed an intent to apply to the position in question,

i.e., a mid-level position. Pl.’s Decl. in Supp. of Pl.’s 

Surreply at 3-4 (filed Dec. 14, 2012). If the mid-levels had 

been open to him for equal consideration on a race-neutral 

footing, he would have applied to the mid-levels instead of 

the entry-level. Thus, like Hamacher, Shea stood “able and 

ready to apply [to the mid-levels] should the [State 

Department] cease to use race” as a factor in mid-level hiring. 

Id. (quotation marks omitted). By choosing not to apply 

because the Department was considering race during the time 

of his application process, Shea did exactly what Hamacher 

alleged he would do: refuse to apply through the raceconscious program unless and until that program’s use of 

race-conscious preferences ceased. As a result, Shea, like 

Hamacher, has standing to challenge the Department’s 

affirmative action plan notwithstanding his failure to apply for 

a mid-level position through the CCP program.

III.

Title VII prohibits an employer from “discriminat[ing] 

against any individual with respect to his compensation, 

terms, conditions, or privileges of employment, because of” 

inter alia, “such individual’s race.” 42 U.S.C. § 2000e2(a)(1). The statute protects both minorities and nonminorities—the latter against “reverse discrimination.” See 

Mastro v. Potomac Elec. Power Co., 447 F.3d 843, 851 (D.C. 

Cir. 2006). Here, Shea alleges that the State Department’s 

1990-92 Plan constituted impermissible reverse 

discrimination in violation of Title VII.

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A.

At the outset, we consider the governing framework for 

resolving Shea’s reverse-discrimination claim. For nearly 

thirty years, we have examined Title VII challenges to 

affirmative action programs under the standards set forth by 

the Supreme Court in United Steelworkers of America, AFLCIO-CLC v. Weber, 443 U.S. 193 (1979), and Johnson v. 

Transportation Agency, Santa Clara County, California, 480 

U.S. 616 (1987). Shea argues that those standards have been 

displaced by the Supreme Court’s decision in Ricci v. 

DeStefano, 557 U.S. 557 (2009), such that Johnson and 

Weber no longer guide the analysis of reverse-discrimination 

claims under Title VII. We are unpersuaded.

1.

In Weber, the Supreme Court for the first time considered 

a Title VII challenge to an employer’s affirmative action plan. 

As of 1974, Kaiser Aluminum & Chemical Corp. had an 

“almost exclusively white craftwork force[],” with black 

employees making up only 1.83% of the company’s skilled 

craftworkers at its Gramercy, Louisiana, plant, even though 

the workforce in the area surrounding that plant was roughly 

39% black. Weber, 443 U.S. at 198-99. As part of a 

collective-bargaining agreement, Kaiser promised to 

implement “an affirmative action plan designed to eliminate 

[that] conspicuous racial imbalance[].” Id. at 198. The

company established job-training programs to teach both 

black and white employees the necessary skills for promotion 

to craftworker positions. Id. at 198-99. Selection of trainees 

for the program would be made on the basis of seniority, but 

“with the proviso that at least 50% of the new trainees were to 

be black until the percentage of black skilled craftworkers in 

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the Gramercy plant approximated the percentage of blacks in 

the local labor force.” Id. at 199. A white unskilled 

production worker from the plant sued, arguing that Title VII 

prohibited all race-conscious employer actions. Id. at 199, 

201. 

The Supreme Court disagreed and upheld Kaiser’s 

affirmative action plan. The Court declined to “define in 

detail the line of demarcation between permissible and 

impermissible affirmative action plans,” but concluded that 

Kaiser’s plan fell “on the permissible side of the line.” Id. at 

208. The trainee-selection plan, the Court approvingly noted, 

aimed to “break down old patterns of racial segregation and 

hierarchy” and “open employment opportunities for [black 

workers] in occupations which have been traditionally closed 

to them.” Id. (quotation marks omitted). The Court set out

the considerations that caused it to uphold the company’s plan

as follows:

[T]he plan does not unnecessarily trammel the 

interests of the white employees. The plan 

does not require the discharge of white 

workers and their replacement with new black 

hirees. Nor does the plan create an absolute 

bar to the advancement of white employees; 

half of those trained in the program will be 

white. Moreover, the plan is a temporary 

measure; it is not intended to maintain racial 

balance, but simply to eliminate a manifest 

racial imbalance. Preferential selection of craft 

trainees at the Gramercy plant will end as soon 

as the percentage of black skilled craftworkers 

in the Gramercy plant approximates the

percentage of blacks in the local labor force.

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Id. at 208-09 (citation omitted). For those reasons, the plan

fell “within the area of discretion left by Title VII to the 

private sector voluntarily to adopt affirmative action plans 

designed to eliminate conspicuous racial imbalance in 

traditionally segregated job categories.” Id. at 209.

2.

Nine years later, in Johnson, the Court again rejected a 

Title VII challenge to an employer’s affirmative action 

program. The case arose from the efforts of Santa Clara 

County, California, to increase diversity in portions of its 

workforce. The County sought to address a striking gender 

imbalance in certain positions: Women constituted 36.4% of 

the labor market in the area, but “none of [the County’s] 238 

Skilled Craft Worker positions was held by a woman.” 

Johnson, 480 U.S. at 621. The County implemented a 

voluntary affirmative action plan with a stated “long-term 

goal” to “attain a work force whose composition reflected the 

proportion of minorities and women in the area labor force.” 

Id. at 621-22. The County’s plan “authorized the 

consideration of ethnicity or sex as a factor when evaluating 

qualified candidates for jobs in which members of such 

groups were poorly represented,” but it did not set aside a 

specific number of hiring slots for women or racial minorities. 

Id. at 622.

In upholding the County’s plan, the Court determined 

that the analysis should follow the three-step burden-shifting 

framework set forth in McDonnell Douglas Corp. v. Green, 

411 U.S. 792 (1973). Under that framework:

Once a plaintiff establishes a prima facie case 

that race or sex has been taken into account in 

an employer’s employment decision [step one], 

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the burden shifts to the employer to articulate a 

nondiscriminatory rationale for its decision 

[step two]. The existence of an affirmative 

action plan provides such a rationale. If such a 

plan is articulated as the basis for the 

employer’s decision, the burden shifts to the 

plaintiff to prove that the employer’s 

justification is pretextual and the plan is 

invalid [step three].

Johnson, 480 U.S. at 626. Application of that framework, the 

Johnson Court emphasized, “does not mean . . . that reliance 

on an affirmative action plan is to be treated as an affirmative 

defense requiring the employer to carry the burden of proving 

the validity of the plan. The burden of proving its invalidity 

remains on the plaintiff.” Id. at 627.

The Johnson Court explained that it would “be guided by 

[its] decision in Weber.” Id. In Weber, the Court noted, it

had blessed an affirmative action plan that (i) sought to 

“eliminate manifest racial imbalances in traditionally 

segregated job categories”; and (ii) did not “unnecessarily 

trammel the interests of white employees.” Id. at 628-30. 

The Court found the requisite “manifest imbalance” to exist in 

Johnson in light of the complete absence of women in the 

positions in question. Id. at 636. The Court further

determined that the County’s plan did not “unnecessarily 

trammel[] the rights of male employees” based on a number 

of factors (without ascribing weight or rank to any single 

one). Id. at 637-40. In particular, the plan imposed “goals,” 

not “quotas.” Id. at 638. The plan worked such that “[n]o

persons [were] automatically excluded from consideration; all

[were] able to have their qualifications weighed against those 

of other applicants,” with gender considered only as a “plus.” 

Id. The plan did not abrogate any “absolute entitlement” of 

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male employees, as it operated only in the context of 

promotions, the denial of which would “unsettle[] no

legitimate, firmly rooted expectation[s].” Id. And the plan 

was temporary, in that it “was intended to attain a balanced 

work force, not to maintain one.” Id. at 639.

For nearly three decades, Johnson has guided courts—

including ours—in the analysis of Title VII claims alleging 

unlawful reverse discrimination. See, e.g., Hammon v. Barry 

(Hammon II), 826 F.2d 73 (D.C. Cir. 1987); see also Petitti v. 

New England Tel. & Tel. Co., 909 F.2d 28 (1st Cir. 1990);

Taxman v. Bd. of Educ., 91 F.3d 1547 (3d Cir. 1996) (en 

banc); Smith v. Va. Commonwealth Univ., 84 F.3d 672 (4th 

Cir. 1996) (en banc); Edwards v. City of Houston, 37 F.3d 

1097 (5th Cir. 1994); Janowiak v. Corporate City of S. Bend, 

836 F.2d 1034 (7th Cir. 1984); Tharp v. Iowa Dep’t of Corr., 

68 F.3d 223 (8th Cir. 1995); Doe v. Kamehameha 

Sch./Bernice Pauahi Bishop Estate, 470 F.3d 827 (9th Cir. 

2006) (en banc); Cunico v. Pueblo Sch. Dist. No. 60, 917 F.2d 

431 (10th Cir. 1990); In re Birmingham Reverse 

Discrimination Emp’t Litig., 20 F.3d 1525 (11th Cir. 1994).

3.

In 2009, the Supreme Court decided Ricci v. DeStefano, 

557 U.S. 557. In Ricci, the Court considered the City of New 

Haven’s actions in the aftermath of the City’s administration 

of a firefighter promotional examination. The results of the 

exam showed a statistical racial disparity: White candidates 

had outperformed minority candidates. Id. at 562. Some 

firefighters threatened to bring a discrimination lawsuit if the 

City relied on the test in making promotions. Id. The City 

responded by throwing out the test results. A group of white

and Hispanic firefighters sued the City under Title VII, 

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claiming that, by discarding the test, the City had engaged in 

unlawful reverse discrimination against them. Id. at 562-63.

The Supreme Court ruled in the firefighters’ favor. The 

Court understood that the City’s “objective” in discarding the 

tests was to “avoid[] disparate-impact liability” under Title 

VII. Id. at 579. But the Court concluded that, by rejecting the 

results of the promotional test “because of the statistical 

disparity based on race,” the City had engaged in “express, 

race-based decisionmaking.” Id. The Court held that “racebased action like the City’s in this case is impermissible under 

Title VII unless the employer can demonstrate a strong basis 

in evidence that, had it not taken the action, it would have

been liable under” Title VII’s disparate-impact prohibition. 

Id. at 563; see id. at 585. That is, the Court held that the City 

could not invalidate the test results based on the race of the 

highest scorers for the asserted purpose of avoiding a 

disparate-impact lawsuit, unless the City had a strong basis in 

evidence to believe that it would be found liable in such a 

suit. The City could not meet that burden. Id. at 592.

Shea argues that Ricci upends Johnson and Weber such 

that those earlier decisions no longer guide our analysis here. 

Under Johnson and Weber, we would first assess the 

sufficiency of Shea’s prima facie case, then turn to the State 

Department’s proffer of a valid affirmative action plan, and 

finally examine Shea’s efforts to demonstrate the invalidity of

that plan. See Johnson, 480 U.S. at 626. Throughout, Shea 

would retain the burden of proving the invalidity of the 

Department’s 1990-92 Plan. Id. at 627. Ricci changed all of 

this, Shea submits: After Ricci, Shea argues, we must jettison 

Johnson and Weber’s framework and instead ask whether the 

State Department can show “a strong basis in evidence that, 

had it not [instituted an affirmative action plan], it would have 

been liable” for discrimination under Title VII. Ricci, 557 

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U.S. at 563 (emphasis added). And, if the Department proves 

unable to put forth the requisite “strong basis in evidence” in 

support of that showing, Shea contends, the Department

would be liable under Title VII for impermissible reverse 

discrimination.

The Department initially argues that Shea forfeited any 

argument based on Ricci by failing to present that argument to 

the district court. We disagree. Although forfeiture 

principles apply to new arguments raised for the first time on 

appeal, see Potter v. District of Columbia, 558 F.3d 542, 547 

(D.C. Cir. 2009), Shea’s argument has been consistent 

throughout the litigation: The Department’s 1990-92 Plan

impermissibly discriminated against him in violation of Title 

VII. On appeal, Shea enjoys a measure of latitude to 

elaborate on his theory in service of the same argument. His 

reliance on Ricci for the first time on appeal lies within that 

latitude. Moreover, although Shea did not press a Ricci-based 

argument before the district court, the district court invoked 

Ricci on its own, observing that “nothing in Ricci directly 

overturns or modifies Johnson, at least as it applies to this 

case.” Shea, 961 F. Supp. 2d at 54 n.17. Shea is permitted to 

respond on appeal by explaining why he thinks Ricci governs

this case. See Citizens United v. Fed. Election Comm’n, 558 

U.S. 310, 330 (2010).

Shea’s argument based on Ricci fails on the merits, 

however. Johnson and Weber are directly applicable to this 

case. They set out the framework for “evaluating the

compliance of an affirmative action plan with Title VII’s 

prohibition on discrimination,” Johnson, 480 U.S. at 640, the 

precise question in issue here. Those decisions 

unquestionably would control our analysis unless a 

subsequent decision dictates otherwise. Ricci is not such a 

decision. In reaching that conclusion, we draw guidance from

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the Supreme Court’s admonition against concluding that its 

“more recent cases have, by implication, overruled an earlier 

precedent.” Agostini v. Felton, 521 U.S. 203, 237 (1997). 

Rather, if “a precedent of [the Supreme] Court has direct 

application in a case, yet appears to rest on reasons rejected in 

some other line of decisions, the Court of Appeals should 

follow the case which directly controls, leaving to [the] Court 

the prerogative of overruling its own decisions.” Id.

Here, Johnson and Weber have “direct application,” and 

we have no occasion or cause to conclude that Ricci, “by 

implication,” overruled those decisions. Id. Indeed, Ricci 

does not mention or even cite—much less discuss—Johnson 

and Weber. That is understandable, as Ricci, by its own 

description, addressed a particular situation not in issue here. 

Cf. Ricci, 557 U.S. at 626 (Ginsburg, J., dissenting) (“[Ricci] 

does not involve affirmative action.”). In Ricci, the Court’s 

“analysis beg[an] with this premise: The City’s actions would 

violate the disparate-treatment prohibition of Title VII absent 

some valid defense.” Id. at 579. The inquiry prescribed by 

Johnson and Weber, by contrast, pertains to assessing whether 

there is a violation of Title VII’s disparate-treatment 

prohibition in the first place, the same question we address 

here.

The specific question addressed in Ricci was whether,

even though the City’s action in discarding the test results was 

assumed to violate Title VII’s disparate-treatment prohibition, 

that action could be justified based on a particular objective

asserted by the City: avoiding liability in a Title VII disparateimpact lawsuit. The Court expressly framed its holding by 

reference to actions taken for that particular purpose:

We hold only that, under Title VII, before an 

employer can engage in intentional 

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discrimination for the asserted purpose of 

avoiding or remedying an unintentional 

disparate impact, the employer must have a 

strong basis in evidence to believe it will be 

subject to disparate-impact liability if it fails to 

take the race-conscious, discriminatory action.

Id; see id. at 580 (“We consider, therefore, whether the 

purpose to avoid disparate-impact liability excuses what 

otherwise would be prohibited disparate-treatment 

discrimination.”) (emphasis added).

The employers in Johnson and Weber did not modify the 

outcomes of personnel processes for the asserted purpose of

avoiding disparate-impact liability under Title VII. Nor did 

the State Department here. The Department, like the 

employers in Johnson and Weber, instead acted to “expand[] 

job opportunities for minorities and women,” Johnson, 480 

U.S. at 622, and to “eliminate traditional patterns of racial 

segregation,” Weber, 443 U.S. at 201; see id. at 209 & n.9. 

Ricci does not purport to reach the Department’s actions in 

pursuit of those purposes. Weber and Johnson therefore still 

control. The only other court of appeals of which we are 

aware to have addressed the interaction between Ricci and the 

Johnson-Weber framework reached the same conclusion. See 

United States v. Brennan, 650 F.3d 65, 102-04 (2d Cir. 2011).

IV.

Under the framework established by Johnson and Weber, 

we ask first if Shea establishes a prima facie case of 

discrimination. Second, we examine whether the State 

Department can articulate a nondiscriminatory reason—in this 

case, a valid affirmative action plan—for its actions. Finally, 

we assess whether Shea carries his burden to prove that the 

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Department’s plan is invalid. The district court found that 

Shea and the Department made the requisite showings at the 

first and second steps, respectively. The court then found 

Shea to falter at the third step and therefore granted summary 

judgment in favor of the Department. We agree at each step.

A.

We first address whether Shea has made out a prima facie 

case of reverse discrimination in violation of Title VII. At the 

outset, we note that neither party has addressed the potential 

implications of our decision in Brady v. Office of Sergeant at 

Arms, 520 F.3d 490 (D.C. Cir. 2008), for Johnson’s direction 

to assess whether the “plaintiff establishes a prima facie 

case,” Johnson, 480 U.S. at 626. Brady explained that, when 

“an employee has suffered an adverse employment action and 

an employer has asserted a legitimate, non-discriminatory 

reason for the decision, the district court need not—and 

should not—decide whether the plaintiff actually made out a 

prima facie case.” 520 F.3d at 494. Rather, “the district court 

must resolve one central question: Has the employee 

produced sufficient evidence for a reasonable jury to find that 

the employer’s asserted non-discriminatory reason was not 

the actual reason and that the employer intentionally 

discriminated against the employee on the basis of” a 

prohibited characteristic? Id. We have since invoked Brady

in the context of a reverse-discrimination claim. See Ginger 

v. District of Columbia, 527 F.3d 1340, 1344 (D.C. Cir. 

2008).

We have not, however, specifically applied Brady in the 

context of a reverse-discrimination suit challenging the 

validity of an employer’s affirmative action plan under Title 

VII. In that domain, Johnson has long set forth the governing 

approach. Because no party on appeal argues that Brady

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should alter that framework, and because the existence of a 

prima facie case is readily resolved in this case in Shea’s 

favor, we leave for another day the resolution of the 

interaction between Brady and Johnson. We therefore 

proceed on the assumption that Johnson’s framework—

including its call for examining the establishment of a prima 

facie case—is controlling for our purposes.

Here, the State Department contests Shea’s establishment 

of a prima facie case in only one respect. As part of the 

showing necessary to make out a prima facie case of 

discrimination (or reverse discrimination) in violation of Title 

VII, a plaintiff must establish that he has been subjected to an 

adverse employment action. George v. Leavitt, 407 F.3d 405, 

412 (D.C. Cir. 2005). The Department argues on appeal, for 

the first time in this case’s long history, that Shea suffered no 

adverse employment action from his hiring at an entry-level 

(rather than mid-level) position because he never applied for 

direct mid-level placement, either through the 1990-92 Plan

or through the race-neutral CCP. We do not reach the merits 

of that argument because the Department forfeited it by 

failing to raise it until this late stage. 

Although “we may affirm a judgment on any ground that 

the record supports and that the opposing party had a fair 

opportunity to address,” Jones v. Bernanke, 557 F.3d 670, 676 

(D.C. Cir. 2009) (internal citation and quotation marks 

omitted), an argument “never made below is waived on 

appeal,” id. (citing Marymount Hosp., Inc. v. Shalala, 19 F.3d 

658 (D.C. Cir. 1994)). The Department at no point in the 

previous fourteen years of litigating this case contended that 

Shea’s failure to apply for a mid-level position could affect

his establishment of a prima facie case. It has instead fought 

Shea’s prima facie showing on other grounds. “[A]bsent 

exceptional circumstances not present here, it is not our 

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practice to entertain issues first raised on appeal.” 

Marymount Hosp., 19 F.3d at 663 (quoting Roosevelt v. E.I. 

Du Pont de Nemours & Co., 958 F.2d 416, 419 & n.5 (D.C. 

Cir. 1992)) (quotation marks omitted). We adhere to that 

practice today. Because the Department has forfeited any 

argument that Shea suffered no adverse employment action, 

and because the Department otherwise does not challenge his 

establishment of a prima facie case on appeal, we agree with 

the district court that Shea has made that showing.

B.

At the second step of Johnson’s framework, the 

Department must “articulate a nondiscriminatory rationale for 

its decision.” Johnson, 480 U.S. at 626. Johnson observes 

that “[t]he existence of an affirmative action plan provides 

such a rationale.” Id. We do not understand Johnson to 

mean, however, that an employer establishes a legitimate, 

nondiscriminatory reason for its decision merely by showing 

that it acted pursuant to an affirmative action plan. See Hill v. 

Ross, 183 F.3d 586, 590 (7th Cir. 1999). 

Rather, the Johnson framework maps onto McDonnell

Douglas’s three steps. Johnson, 480 U.S. at 626-27. To 

satisfy its burden of production at the second McDonnell

Douglas step, the State Department must “introduce evidence 

which, taken as true, would permit the conclusion that there 

was a nondiscriminatory reason for” its actions. St. Mary’s 

Honor Ctr. v. Hicks, 509 U.S. 502, 509 (1993) (emphasis 

omitted). And while a valid affirmative action plan is 

considered nondiscriminatory, see Parker v. Balt. & Ohio 

R.R. Co., 652 F.2d 1012, 1017 n.9 (D.C. Cir. 1981), an invalid 

affirmative action plan is discriminatory, see Taxman, 91 F.3d 

at 1567. As a result, the Department needs to produce 

“evidence which, taken as true, would permit the conclusion” 

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that it acted for a “nondiscriminatory reason,” i.e., pursuant to 

a valid affirmative action plan. Hicks, 509 U.S. at 509

(emphasis omitted); see Shea, 961 F. Supp. 2d at 33-34. 

We have explained that, under Johnson and Weber, a 

valid affirmative action plan should satisfy two general

conditions. First, a valid plan rests on an adequate factual 

predicate justifying its adoption, such as a “manifest 

imbalance” in a “traditionally segregated job categor[y].” 

Johnson, 480 U.S. at 631; see Hammon II, 826 F.2d at 74-75. 

Second, a valid plan refrains from “unnecessarily 

trammel[ing] the rights of [white] employees.” Johnson, 480 

U.S. at 637-38; see Hammon II, 826 F.2d at 81. We take up 

those considerations in order.

1.

The district court concluded that the Department 

adequately grounded its 1990-92 Plan in evidence of a 

manifest imbalance in a traditionally segregated job category. 

See Shea, 961 F. Supp. 2d at 34-39. We agree.

a.

Ascertaining the existence of a “manifest imbalance” is a 

“fact-specific task” in a “sensitive and delicate area.” 

Hammon II, 826 F.2d at 75. One method that may be used to 

demonstrate such an imbalance—and the one relied on by the 

State Department here—entails a showing of statistical 

disparities between the racial makeup of the employer’s 

workforce and that of a “comparator population.” If the 

positions in question “require no special expertise,” the 

comparator population would be “‘the area labor market or 

general population.’” Id. (citation omitted) (quoting Johnson, 

480 U.S. at 632). But for “jobs that require special training,”

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the ‘“comparison should be with those in the labor force who 

possess the relevant qualifications.’” Id. (citation omitted)

(quoting Johnson, 480 U.S. at 632).

When the Department adopted the 1990-92 Plan, the 

agency had before it two analyses comparing its own

workforce with the labor pool possessing the relevant 

qualifications: (i) the 1989 GAO Report, and (ii) a formal 

analysis conducted by the Department itself when 

promulgating the 1990-92 Plan. The Department points to 

those two statistical studies as its principal evidence of a 

manifest imbalance between minority representation in the 

Foreign Service and the comparator population.

Shea contends that the Department cannot rely on either 

of those studies. He argues that the 1990-92 Plan amounted 

only to a continuation of a preexisting affirmative action plan 

in place from 1987-89, and that the 1990-92 Plan thus was 

actually adopted in 1987. Shea submits that any data on 

which the Department purports to justify any affirmative 

action plan must have been in its possession when it 

promulgated the plan—which, by Shea’s account, would have 

been in 1987, before either the 1989 GAO Report or the 1990-

92 Plan’s analysis. Consequently, Shea argues, the State 

Department is foreclosed from invoking either study as a 

justification for its actions.

We assume arguendo the correctness of Shea’s premise 

that the Department cannot justify its race-conscious actions 

by reference to post hoc data collection. Even so, Shea errs in 

contending that the Department cannot rely on the 1989 GAO 

Report or the findings contained in the 1990-92 Plan to justify 

the Plan. The district court concluded that the Department’s

1987-89 affirmative action efforts and the 1990-92 Plan in 

fact were two different plans. See Shea, 961 F. Supp. 2d at 

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30. We would tend to agree. But even if otherwise, the 1990-

92 Plan at the very least amounted to a review and overhaul of 

the Department’s affirmative action efforts. See, e.g., U.S.

Dep’t of State, Multi-Year Plan, FY 1990-92 at 51 (rev. 

version Apr. 30, 1991) (1990-92 Plan Document) (assembling 

new diversity statistics for purposes of the 1990-92 Plan); id.

at 61 (noting that the 1987-89 plan “has been refined . . . to 

define better the type of candidate to be recruited” (emphasis 

added)). “When a program that has been reauthorized is 

challenged, all evidence available to the [decisionmaker] prior 

to reauthorization must be considered in assessing” the 

program’s legality. Rothe Dev. Corp. v. U.S. Dep’t of Def., 

262 F.3d 1306, 1328 (Fed. Cir. 2001). Accordingly, even if

the 1990-92 Plan amounted to a reauthorization of the 

Department’s 1987-89 affirmative action efforts, and even if

the Department cannot justify its actions based on post hoc 

data, the 1989 GAO Report and the findings contained in the 

1990-92 Plan are a proper evidentiary proffer.

The version of the 1990-92 Plan in our record contains 

the Department’s employment data from 1989 and 1990. As 

the 1989 data represent the data in the State Department’s 

possession both at the time it promulgated the 1990-92 Plan 

and at the time Shea applied to the Foreign Service, we use 

that data (though we note that the minor differences between 

the 1989 and 1990 data would have no impact on our 

conclusions today). The 1990-92 Plan’s findings showed 

improvement in the Foreign Service’s diversity from the time 

of the 1989 GAO Report. The combined FS-02 and -03 

levels, for instance, showed underrepresentation only for 

Native Americans and Alaskans. See 1990-92 Plan 

Document at 46a; 47a. For other minority populations at the

combined FS-02 and -03 positions, there were no imbalances, 

manifest or otherwise. As a result, Shea contends, the 

Department cannot justify the 1990-92 Plan by claiming that 

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it addressed manifest imbalances for all minority groups at 

those levels. 

The Department initially asserts that the 1990-92 Plan

established “goals” only for groups specifically shown in the 

data to be underrepresented. We take this to mean, for 

example, that, at the combined FS-02 and -03 levels, “goals” 

would have been set only for Native Americans and Alaskans,

and not for other minority populations. If the “goals” 

operated such that only members of the underrepresented 

minority groups received favorable treatment in the 

application process relative to Shea, the Department’s 

argument would have force. But the Department provides no 

information about how the “goals” would have worked in 

practice. And we find no description in the record. All that 

we can glean from the record is that all minority applicants

received the main benefit available under the 1990-92 Plan—

waiver of the certificate-of-need requirement for entry into the 

FS-01, -02, and -03 levels. 

The Department’s defense of the 1990-92 Plan stands on 

stronger footing, however, with regard to more senior-level 

positions. Looking up the ranks from the FS-02 and -03 

levels, the Department identified a more across-the-board 

manifest imbalance. The Department first points to the FS-01 

level. According to the 1990-92 Plan data, all minority 

groups were underrepresented at the FS-01 level at the time of 

the plan’s promulgation. To achieve full representation, the 

number of black Officers at that level would have needed to 

increase by 62%, Hispanics by 14%, Native Americans and 

Alaskans by 256%, and Asians and Pacific Islanders by 47%. 

See 1990-92 Plan Document at 46a; 47a.

The Department also points to the ranks of the SFS. The 

1990-92 Plan, so far as we can tell, contains no specific data 

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on diversity in the SFS. Accordingly, we look to the SFS 

findings from the 1989 GAO Report. Those findings show 

underrepresentation of all minority groups at the SFS level. 

And the imbalances are manifest: To achieve full 

representation, the number of black Officers in the SFS would 

have needed to increase by 154%, Hispanics by 163%, Asians 

and Pacific Islanders by 700%, and, for Native Americans and 

Alaskans, by an undefined percentage (because the Foreign 

Service had no SFS Officer of Native American or Alaskan 

origin). See 1989 GAO Report at 17.

b.

Johnson speaks in terms not just of any manifest 

imbalance, but of a manifest imbalance in a traditionally 

segregated job category. 480 U.S. at 631. As the Court 

explained, the “requirement that the manifest imbalance relate 

to a traditionally segregated job category provides 

assurance” that “race will be taken into account in a manner 

consistent with Title VII’s purpose of eliminating the effects 

of employment discrimination.” Id. at 632 (quotation marks 

omitted). That approach guards against licensing an employer 

to seek proportional representation purely for its own sake. 

The Department must make a showing that, if taken as true, 

would permit the conclusion that the manifest imbalance 

resulted from a “predicate of discrimination” rather than from 

benign forces. Hammon II, 826 F.2d at 74-75, 80-81. We 

find that the Department has done so.

First, the substantial imbalances at the SFS level

themselves indicate that discriminatory practices may well 

have been afoot. While a significant disparity is not itself 

dispositive, “ranks [that are] overwhelming[ly] white” are “a 

powerful present-day demonstration of a prior regime of 

discrimination.” Hammon v. Barry (Hammon I), 813 F.2d 

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412, 427 (D.C. Cir. 1987) (referring to Weber). Here, the

disparity between white and non-white SFS Officers qualifies 

as overwhelming. Of the 655 serving SFS Officers counted 

by the 1989 GAO Report, 631 were white. See 1989 GAO 

Report at 17. “[F]ine tuning of the[se] statistics could not 

have obscured the glaring absence of minority” officers. Int’l 

Bhd. of Teamsters v. United States, 431 U.S. 324, 342 n.23 

(1977).

Second, testimony before Congress concerning the 1989 

GAO Report, the Bremer Study Group Report, and the 

Thomas Commission Report provided Congress with 

evidence of pervasive historical discrimination in the Foreign 

Service tracing as far back as the 1960s. For example, one 

witness testified that, when he “entered on duty in State in late 

1965 . . . [he] had [his] first experience with discrimination, 

aside from what [he] had experienced while stationed in the 

South,” and further noted that “[m]inorities have been 

underrepresented purposefully” within the Department. 1989 

Subcomm. Hearing at 33, 39. Another witness, focusing on 

gender discrimination at the Department, explained that,

while “[i]nstances of blatant sexism and discrimination have 

declined, . . . some do still take place,” and “a simple glance 

at the statistics contained in the [1989 GAO Report] . . . will 

confirm the continued existence of a problem.” Id. at 42. The 

former EEOC Commissioner offered his assessment that 

“[t]he State Department wants to hire what I call the mythical 

American, the 5’10,” 160 pound WASP man in perfect 

physical and mental health.” J.A. 342. And the Department’s 

Deputy Assistant for Equal Opportunity and Civil Rights

provided testimony that, around the world, he had 

“encountered complaints of discrimination from [State’s] 

employees and criticisms from foreigners for that same 

discrimination as exhibited by our predominantly white male 

diplomatic corps.” Id. at 13. 

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To the House Subcommittee on the Civil Service, such

testimony likely came as no surprise. While the record before 

us does not contain the underlying materials, Representative 

Sikorski, the Subcommittee Chairman, stated his belief that 

those reports confirmed a State Department inadequately

concerned with diversity. Previous investigations and 

hearings by his subcommittee, he stated, “documented serious 

instances of discriminatory treatment by the Foreign Service 

of women, minorities, and people with handicaps.” 1989 

Joint Hearing at 10. His testimony included the revelation 

that “more than 240 Equal Employment Opportunity (EEO) 

cases” had been filed and indications that previous efforts to 

diversify the Foreign Service championed by the Secretary of 

State were “largely ignored by the Department.” Id. 

Moreover, he noted, the Department had “been repeatedly 

cited by the [EEOC] for submitting deficient [diversity] 

reports.” Id. The 1989 GAO Report noted that, despite 

repeated criticism including suggestions of bias, the State 

Department never “conducted analyses of possible 

impediments to equal employment opportunity.” 1989 GAO 

Report at 4.

This case is therefore a far cry from our decisions in 

Hammon I and II, in which we determined that the District of 

Columbia had failed to demonstrate the predicate of 

discrimination necessary to justify an affirmative action 

program for its hiring of firefighters. The challenged plan

purportedly addressed the District’s history of discriminatory 

hiring against black applicants. But during the relevant 

historical period, blacks made up an average of 41.8% of the 

firefighters hired each year, Hammon I, 813 F.2d at 427, and, 

at the time of the challenge, 37% of the firefighting workforce

overall, Hammon II, 826 F.2d at 77. The proper comparator 

pool was 29.3% black. Hammon I, 813 F.2d at 428. In light 

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of those figures, the District “steadfastly and persuasively 

protested its innocence of any discriminatory activity,” and 

we agreed. Id. at 427. 

Here, by contrast, evidence identified by the Department 

would permit the conclusion that there had been a past

practice of discrimination with continuing effects through the 

early 1990s. We therefore agree with the district court that 

the Department made an adequate evidentiary proffer that the 

1990-92 Plan “served to remedy the lingering effects of 

State’s past discrimination.” Shea, 961 F. Supp. 2d at 39.

2.

Having shown the necessary factual predicate for the 

1990-92 Plan in the form of a manifest imbalance in a 

traditionally segregated job category, the Department faces 

one additional requirement: The plan must not have 

unnecessarily trammeled the rights of white applicants. 

Johnson, 480 U.S. at 637-38; Hammon II, 826 F.2d at 81. 

We, like the district court, conclude that the Department has 

made an adequate showing in this regard.

a.

There is “no precise formula for determining whether an 

affirmative action plan unnecessarily trammels the rights of 

non-beneficiaries.” In re Birmingham Reverse 

Discrimination Emp’t Litig., 20 F.3d at 1541. Rather, a 

number of considerations inform the inquiry. See Johnson, 

480 U.S. at 637-40; Weber, 443 U.S. at 208-09; Hammon II, 

826 F.2d at 81. Those considerations weigh in favor of the 

1990-92 Plan’s validity.

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First, the type of affirmative action plan matters. 

Affirmative action in hiring generally poses less of a concern

than affirmative action in layoffs. See Johnson, 480 U.S. at 

638. Hiring decisions upset settled expectations to a lesser 

degree (because an applicant has no absolute entitlement to a 

job), and they affect a more diffuse group (all potential 

applicants) than do layoffs, which target specific employees. 

See United States v. Paradise, 480 U.S. 149, 183 (1987)

(plurality opinion) (“Denial of a future employment 

opportunity . . . is not as intrusive as loss of an existing job.”) 

(quotation marks omitted); cf. Firefighters Local Union No. 

1784 v. Stotts, 467 U.S. 561, 578-79 (1984). Here, the 1990-

92 Plan awarded benefits to minority candidates only in the 

hiring process, and even then, only at the very initial stage.

Second, the degree of benefit, or “plus,” bestowed by the 

affirmative action plan can make a difference. Affirmative 

action resulting in the hiring only of qualified candidates 

more easily survives scrutiny than affirmative action resulting 

in the hiring of unqualified beneficiaries. See Johnson, 480 

U.S. at 637-38. In this case, the Department’s 1990-92 Plan 

provided for hiring only of qualified candidates: Minority

applicants considered through the 1990-92 Plan underwent 

the same rigorous application path as did white candidates 

considered through the race-neutral CCP, with the only 

difference coming in the form of the certificate-of-need 

waiver at the threshold.

Third, the goals of the affirmative action plan affect the 

inquiry. A plan that seeks to achieve full representation for 

the particular purpose of remedying past discrimination will 

generally be shorter in duration than one that pursues 

proportional diversity for its own sake. When a plan pursues 

only the former goal, it presumably would cease to operate 

once full representation is achieved. And the shorter the time 

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period for which a plan is in operation, the less it could be 

said adversely to affect non-beneficiaries. In Weber, for 

instance, the Court approvingly observed that the plan it 

upheld was “not intended to maintain racial balance, but 

simply to eliminate a manifest racial imbalance.” 443 U.S. at 

208; see Johnson, 480 U.S. at 639-40. Here, the 1990-92 Plan 

sought to attain more proportional representation, not to 

maintain it in perpetuity. Indeed, the 1990-92 Plan ceased to 

operate in 1993 and has not been replaced. Shea, 961 F. 

Supp. 2d at 41-42. 

Fourth, the extent to which the challenged plan limits 

opportunities for advancement by non-beneficiaries is a 

relevant consideration. In both Johnson and Weber, the Court 

observed that the plan in question created no “absolute bar” to 

the advancement of non-beneficiaries. Johnson, 480 U.S. at 

637-38; Weber, 443 U.S. at 208. Here, Shea makes no 

argument that the 1990-92 Plan engendered any “absolute 

bar” to the advancement of non-minorities in the Foreign 

Service ranks. Non-minority candidates from outside the 

agency could apply directly to the mid-level ranks through the 

race-neutral CCP, and internal white candidates could—and 

did—gain promotion to mid-level positions from the Foreign 

Service entry-level ranks.

b.

Our court has understood the need to avoid 

“unnecessarily” trammeling the rights of non-minority 

candidates to indicate that a challenged affirmative action 

plan generally must be “tailored to fit the violation” sought to 

be addressed. Hammon II, 826 F.2d at 74; see id. at 81. Here, 

the 1990-92 Plan granted a certificate-of-need waiver to 

candidates applying to the FS-01, -02, and -03 levels. The 

Department’s identified manifest imbalances, however,

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occurred at only the more senior levels. Why bestow benefits 

at the FS-02 and -03 levels if the manifest imbalances sought 

to be addressed existed only at more senior positions? To do 

so, Shea contends, means that the 1990-92 Plan was so overinclusive as to unnecessarily trammel the rights of white 

applicants at the FS-02 and -03 levels.

The Department submits that there is a sound explanation 

for targeting the FS-02 and -03 levels to address an imbalance 

at more senior levels. The 1990-92 Plan satisfies the tailoring 

requirement, the Department explains, because the FS-02 and 

-03 levels serve as the training grounds for learning the skills 

necessary to perform at the SFS and FS-01 levels. We agree. 

The plan upheld in Weber is instructive. The employer in 

Weber aimed to remedy the manifest imbalance in its ranks of 

skilled workers: a mere 1.83% of its skilled workers were

black, while the labor force in the surrounding area was 39% 

black. 443 U.S. at 198-99. To address the identified 

imbalance in its skilled workforce, however, the employer 

could not simply hire laborers lacking the requisite skills. 

Rather, it needed to hire laborers after they had acquired those

skills. The employer established a training program to tackle 

that problem, stipulating that 50% of all employees entering 

the training program would be black until the percentage of 

black skilled workers in its workforce approximated the 

percentage in the local labor force. See id. at 199. 

Weber thus provides an example of an affirmative action 

plan going beyond strictly proportional representation in a 

training program: 50% of the spots would go to the 

company’s black workers, even though black persons made 

up only 39% of the area labor force. Employees who had 

completed Weber’s training program could then proceed to 

the rank of skilled worker, where the manifest imbalance 

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existed. The need to create an adequate pipeline of trained 

workers meant that the program was sufficiently tailored to 

target the “manifest imbalance” among skilled workers. 

The State Department’s 1990-92 Plan worked similarly. 

In order to attain full representation at the SFS and FS-01 

levels, the Department maintains, it had to go beyond strictly 

proportional minority representation at the FS-02 and -03 

levels. It could then choose from qualified minority 

candidates at those levels to staff its SFS and FS-01 ranks. 

With regard to the SFS, the Department’s hiring 

regulations in place at the time of the 1990-92 Plan 

demonstrate that the Department valued a certain set of skills 

in its SFS Officers and believed that the best way for SFS 

candidates to gain those experiences was through service in 

the mid-level Foreign Service ranks. The regulations 

provided that career SFS Officers “normally shall be 

appointed as the result of promotion of Mid-Level career 

officers,” and generally limited the SFS to a maximum of five 

percent external hires at any given time. Appointment of 

Members of the Foreign Service, 48 Fed. Reg. 38,606, 38,607

(Aug. 25, 1983). Additionally, career SFS applicants 

generally had to have completed at least five years of service 

in a position “of responsibility . . . equivalent to that of a MidLevel Foreign Service officer (classes FS-1 through FS-3),” 

with “duties and responsibilities . . . similar to or closely 

related to that of a Foreign Service officer in terms of 

knowledge, skills, abilities, and overseas work experience.” 

Id. The difficulties encountered by those directly promoted to 

a mid- or high-level position in the Foreign Service, which 

usually included a “prolonged adjustment period” and 

experiencing “a competitive disadvantage,” further suggest

that percolating through the ranks was, generally, a sounder 

career path. 

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The conclusion from the then-existing regulations is 

straightforward: The Department believed that the best 

training for the role of a SFS Officer was experience as an FS01, -02, or -03 Foreign Service Officer. The Department

similarly valued skills gleaned from experience at the FS-02 

and -03 ranks for the position of an FS-01, with outside hires 

into the FS-01 ranks serving as the small exception to the 

Department’s general internal promotion ladder. See J.A. 

343, 516-17. Shea has introduced no evidence contradicting 

that understanding.

In view of the Department’s assessment that the most 

qualified candidates for the SFS and FS-01 ranks would come 

from its own mid-levels, the Department understandably saw 

a need to go further than strictly proportional representation in

its mid-levels. That was necessary, the Department 

reasonably concluded, in order to have a sufficient reservoir 

of talented minority candidates from which to hire in order to 

achieve diversity in its SFS and FS-01 ranks. Otherwise, 

assuming that promotion rates were the same across races 

from the mid-levels to the SFS and FS-01 levels, the 

Department would need to await a great deal of turnover in 

the overwhelmingly white SFS and FS-01 ranks before the 

substantial imbalances at those levels would be rectified. 

Congressional testimony on the 1989 GAO Report 

reveals that very concern. Joseph Kelley of the General 

Accounting Office, in response to questioning about when 

“the State Department [would] become representative of the 

American people,” told Congress that “[i]t is going to take a 

long time,” and noted that the EEOC had been pushing the 

Department “to have a program to move people around and to 

have upper-level promotions, but it ha[d]n’t worked out that 

well.” 1989 Subcomm. Hearing at 29-30. The Department

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required a method by which to augment the flow of minority 

candidates to the SFS and FS-01 levels. As Representative 

Sikorski observed, “if the numbers [only] get[] better 

in . . . entry level and hiring,” then “there is no upward 

progress. There is no flow in the right direction. We are 

talking centuries.” Id. at 29-30.

It is no answer to claim that the Department could simply 

promote minorities to the SFS and FS-01 levels at higher rates 

than their non-minority peers. That itself would have been a 

race-conscious action requiring justification. That option, at 

any rate, appears to have been non-viable. Testimony before 

Congress indicated that promotions of minorities to high-level 

positions were already happening “too fast,” such that the 

Department began “to get a backlash” that promotions were 

“not [of] qualified . . . minorities” and that those promoted 

were “not really ready to make this jump.” Id. at 47. Title 

VII does not require the Department to promote unqualified 

candidates to execute the important mission of our diplomatic 

corps. For those reasons, the 1990-92 Plan’s emphasis on 

hiring at mid-level positions was adequately tailored to 

address manifest imbalances at the senior levels.

At its root, finally, the unnecessary trammeling inquiry 

amounts to an exercise in balancing a plan’s attempts to 

remedy past discrimination against the plan’s adverse impact 

on the rights of non-minorities. In this case, the latter impact 

was unquestionably limited. The 1989 GAO Report indicates 

that the State Department had 655 SFS Officers, 836 FS-01 

Officers, and 2,032 FS-02 or -03 Officers. 1989 GAO Report 

at 17. Against that backdrop, the Department informs us that 

only sixteen minority candidates were hired into the midlevels through the 1990-92 Plan over the three calendar years 

of its operation. With such a modest effect on the hiring 

process, the 1990-92 Plan was necessarily limited in the 

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extent to which it could “trammel” Shea’s rights, 

“unnecessarily” or otherwise.

c.

The tailoring inquiry, according to our decisions, also 

takes into account whether the employer considered raceneutral alternatives. See Hammon II, 826 F.2d at 81. While 

the program we considered in Hammon failed to pass muster 

because “reasonable alternatives were not seriously 

discussed,” Hammon I, 813 F.2d at 430, the district court in 

this case found the Department’s evidence to show that it

turned to the 1990-92 Plan’s race-conscious measures only 

after race-neutral efforts failed to bear fruit. Shea, 961 F. 

Supp. 2d at 40-41. We agree.

The record documents a number of previous attempts to 

correct the identified imbalances without resort to explicit 

racial preferences, particularly through recruiting and 

outreach. From 1964 on, the Department targeted historically 

black institutions as part of its “diplomat in residence” 

program, through which it assigned a senior-level Foreign 

Service Officer to research, writing, and teaching duties at a 

university in an effort to generate interest in the Foreign 

Service among students. 1989 GAO Report at 24. From 

1980 on, the Department made a concentrated recruiting push 

to stimulate an increase in minority applicants, including by

“provid[ing] information packages to colleges . . . and 

ask[ing] college coordinators to encourage minorities . . . to 

take the annual written [Foreign Service] examination.” Id. at 

22-23. The Department’s recruiters made special efforts to 

visit colleges and universities with large minority enrollments. 

Id. at 23. Ultimately, however, the Department concluded 

that its “recruiting efforts [did] not increase[] the number of 

minorities taking the FS examination for officer positions.” 

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Id. And in 1986, the Secretary of State implemented a 

recommendation from black Foreign Service Officers aimed 

at elevating minority written exam pass rates by increasing 

minority enrollment in university courses relevant to the 

exam. That initiative, too, apparently proved unsatisfactory. 

See id. at 25. 

The Department also instituted “sensitivity training” 

between “senior management” and “senior minorities” to 

address the gap, with little success. J.A. 369-70. Moreover, it

considered implementing an entirely race-neutral mid-level 

entry program, but rejected that option as unlikely to be

effective—an understandable conclusion in light of the 

inadequacy of State’s earlier reliance on “the promotion of 

entry level FS officers to eliminate underrepresentation at 

more senior levels.” J.A. 301, 543. The 1990-92 Plan thus 

hardly constituted the Department’s maiden effort to solve its 

persistent diversity problem, and Shea points to no other raceneutral alternatives that should have been considered.

The Department, in short, has introduced evidence that

the 1990-92 Plan worked to target manifest imbalances in 

senior-level positions in the Foreign Service Officer corps, 

and that those imbalances resulted from past discrimination. 

It has also introduced evidence that the Plan refrained from 

unnecessarily trammeling the rights of non-minority 

candidates. We therefore conclude that the Department 

satisfies its burden to introduce evidence that, if taken as true, 

demonstrates the 1990-92 Plan’s validity under Johnson and 

Weber.

V.

Having concluded that the Department met its burden of 

production at the second step of the Johnson-McDonnell 

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Douglas framework, we ask at the final step whether Shea has 

proven that the Department’s “justification is pretextual and 

the plan is invalid.” Johnson, 480 U.S. at 626. In the district 

court, Shea introduced his own lay statistical evidence in an 

attempt to show that the Department’s identified manifest 

imbalances did not exist. See Shea, 961 F. Supp. 2d at 45-53. 

The district court rejected every piece of statistical evidence 

proffered by Shea as inadmissible. See id. Shea does not 

appeal those findings, and he raises no other claims of the 

1990-92 Plan’s invalidity for purposes of Johnson’s third 

step. He therefore necessarily fails to carry his burden at that 

step, warranting the entry of summary judgment in favor of 

the Department.

* * * * *

For the foregoing reasons, we affirm the district court’s 

grant of summary judgment.

So ordered.

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WILLIAMS, Senior Circuit Judge, concurring: I join the 

court’s opinion painstakingly applying the key Supreme Court 

cases, Johnson v. Transp. Agency, Santa Clara Cnty., 480 

U.S. 616 (1987), and United Steelworkers v. Weber, 443 U.S. 

193 (1979). I write separately to note that this area of the law 

continues to be rather amorphous and to call attention to a 

statistical problem disclosed by the record but not raised by 

the plaintiff on appeal. 

Nearly three decades ago Judge Silberman observed that 

he was “uncertain as to the meaning of ‘manifest imbalance.’” 

Hammon v. Barry, 826 F.2d 73, 81 (D.C. Cir. 1987) 

(Silberman, J., concurring in denial of rehearing). I fully 

share that uncertainty, and would add that I have the same 

reaction to all of the key terms prescribed by the Supreme 

Court for assessing affirmative action plans under Title VII:

whether there has been “manifest imbalance” in a 

“traditionally segregated job category,” and whether the plan 

“unnecessarily trammels the rights” of the persons disfavored. 

Court Op., 24. It may be that the Supreme Court selected 

these terms to assure that, without saying it in so many words, 

an employer can use race and gender for hiring or promoting 

minorities or women to the extent appropriate to assure that 

there is no “underrepresentation”—i.e., to amend any nontrivial deviation from proportionality to some more or less 

plausible applicant pool (at least so long as the employer can 

muster vague, generalized and/or hearsay assertions of past 

discrimination). This is not a self-evident interpretation of 

Title VII’s directive that employers are not “to discriminate 

against any individual . . . because of such individual’s race

[or] sex.” 

The effect is especially striking here: Shea neither

challenged the district court’s ruling that his analysis of the 

State Department’s calculations was inadmissible, Court Op. 

40, nor its ruling that the affirmative action plan’s repeated 

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declarations of “manifest imbalance” were sufficient without 

expert provision of statistical support. See Shea v. Kerry, 961

F. Supp. 2d 17, 51-52 (D.D.C. 2013). The figures 

underpinning State’s plan consist mainly of numerical 

comparisons of various subgroups of Foreign Service

employees (“Administrative,” “Professional,” “Clerical,” etc.)

with a selected comparison group based on the “National 

Civilian Labor Force” data for various types of workers, e.g., 

“Public Administration Administrators and Officials.” Joint 

Appendix (“J.A.”) 209, 216. The description of the study in 

the record, J.A. 209, does not state what statistical test or 

standard of statistical significance the authors used, or indeed 

whether they used any statistical method at all. Certainly they 

do not suggest that they made an adjustment in the standard 

for statistical significance to account for the multiplicity of 

subgroups, as would be necessary if we assume that State was

seeking to identify only “imbalances” not attributable to 

random chance. “When interpreting . . . a table which 

summarizes results from a number of comparisons, one must 

bear in mind that when the number of comparisons is large

[State’s report included hundreds], the probability may be 

substantial that at least one disparity with a P-value less than

.05 will occur because of pure chance.” David C. Baldus & 

James W. L. Cole, Statistical Proof of Discrimination § 9.03 

(Supp. 1987); see also id. at n.24a (“It is a mathematical fact 

that where 17 independent comparisons are to be tested, the 

probability of finding one or more to be statistically 

significant at the .05 level is .58, or almost 6 chances in 10.”). 

Further impairing the value of the analysis is that many of 

the subsets are so small as to indicate a complete lack of 

intelligible criteria for State’s assertions of “manifest 

imbalance,” a term the report often uses but never explains. 

The report contains charts that split the workforce three ways 

(by occupational subgroup, ethnicity, and gender), and in one 

case it announces that it “reveals” a “manifest imbalance” of

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American Indian females (who represent 0.2% of the labor 

force comparison data) in the Finance Officer division, which

employs only 125 people. J.A. 224-25. It seems improbable 

that any statistical test or standard of significance could yield 

evidence of a non-random “imbalance” for so small a 

subgroup. To the extent the report is suggesting that some 

purported “imbalances” could be amended by the hiring of a 

single employee of the right ethnicity and gender in the 

occupational unit in question, that response would, in turn,

presumably create “imbalance” in another direction—thus 

appearing to undermine whatever criteria may have been used 

to define “manifest imbalance.” See, e.g., J.A. 218-19; 224-

25. I recognize that Johnson is quite specific in stating that 

the proof of imbalance needed as a prerequisite for race- and 

gender-based affirmative action preferences is less than what 

is needed to establish a prima facie case of a Title VII 

violation, 480 U.S. at 632-33, but an employer performing this 

exercise should at least be able to state its criteria for 

“manifest imbalance.” 

The State Department in this respect sounds rather like 

the defendant university in Hill v. Ross, 183 F.3d 586, 591 

(7th Cir. 1999): “What the University appears to have in 

mind is a world in which the absence of discrimination means 

that every department would exactly mirror the population 

from which its members are hired. But that is statistical 

nonsense.” In Hill, Judge Easterbrook went on to explain in 

detail what made the university’s theories nonsensical. 

Without close attention, Johnson’s seeming license to pursue 

proportionality in a workforce can dissolve into a license to 

pursue proportionality in almost any subset of the workforce. 

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