Source: https://case-law.vlex.com/vid/478-u-s-421-605029390
Timestamp: 2020-03-30 17:19:50
Document Index: 770033667

Matched Legal Cases: ['§ 706', '§ 706', '§ 703', '§ 706', '§ 706', '§ 706', '§ 706']

478 U.S. 421 (1986), 84-1656, Local 28 of the Sheet Metal Workers' International Association - Federal Cases - Case Law - VLEX 605029390
478 U.S. 421 (1986), 84-1656, Local 28 of the Sheet Metal Workers' International Association
Docket Nº: No. 84-1656
Citation: 478 U.S. 421, 106 S.Ct. 3019, 92 L.Ed.2d 344, 54 U.S.L.W. 4984
Party Name: Local 28 of the Sheet Metal Workers' International Association
Case Date: July 02, 1986
106 S.Ct. 3019, 92 L.Ed.2d 344, 54 U.S.L.W. 4984
In 1975, the District Court found petitioner union and petitioner apprenticeship committee of the union guilty of violating Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 by discriminating against nonwhite workers in recruitment, selection, training, and admission to the union. The court ordered petitioners to end their discriminatory practices, established a 29% nonwhite membership goal, based on the percentage of nonwhites in the relevant labor pool in New York City, to be achieved by July 1981, and also ordered petitioners to implement procedures [106 S.Ct. 3022] designed to achieve this goal under the supervision of a court-appointed administrator. Thereafter, the administrator proposed and the court adopted an affirmative action program. The Court of Appeals affirmed, with modifications. On remand, the District Court adopted a revised affirmative action program, and extended the time to meet the 29% membership goal. The Court of Appeals again affirmed. In 1982 and again in 1983, the District Court found petitioners guilty of civil contempt for disobeying the court's earlier orders. The court imposed a fine to be placed in a special Employment, Training, Education, and Recruitment Fund (Fund), to be used to increase nonwhite membership in the union and its apprenticeship program. The District Court ultimately entered an amended affirmative action program establishing a 29.23% nonwhite membership goal to be met by August, 1987. The Court of Appeals affirmed the District Court's contempt findings (with one exception), the contempt remedies, including the Fund order, and the affirmative action program with modifications, holding that the 29.23% nonwhite membership goal was proper, and did not violate Title VII or the Constitution.
(b) The availability of affirmative race-conscious relief under § 706 (g) as a remedy for violations of Title VII furthers the broad purposes underlying the statute. In some circumstances, such relief may be the only effective means available to ensure the full enjoyment of the rights protected by Title VII. Pp. 447-451.
[106 S.Ct. 3023] (c) The legislative history does not indicate that Congress intended that affirmative relief under § 706(g) benefit only the identified victims of past discrimination. Opponents of Title VII charged that employers and labor unions would be required to implement racial quotas or preferences to avoid liability under the statute. Supporters insisted that Title VII did not require "racial balancing." The debate in Congress concerning
what Title VII did and did not require culminated in the adoption of § 703(j), which expressly states that the statute does not require an employer or a union to adopt quotas or preferences simply because of racial imbalance. But Congress gave no intimation as to whether such measures would be acceptable as remedies for Title VII violations. An examination of the legislative policy behind Title VII discloses that Congress did not intend to prohibit a court from ordering affirmative action in appropriate circumstances as a remedy for past discrimination. This interpretation of the scope of a district court's remedial power under § 706(g) is confirmed by the contemporaneous interpretation of the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission and the Justice Department, the two agencies charged with enforcing Title VII, and is also confirmed by the legislative history of the Equal Employment Opportunity Act of 1972, which amended Title VII by, inter alia, modifying § 706(g) to empower district courts to order "any other equitable relief as the court deems appropriate." Pp. 452-470.
(d) This Court's prior decisions, such as Teamsters v. United States, 431 U.S. 324, Franks v. Bowman Transportation Co., 424 U.S. 747, and Albemarle Paper Co. v. Moody, 422 U.S. 405, held only that a court may order relief designed to make individual victims of racial discrimination whole, and did not suggest that individual "make-whole" relief was the only kind of remedy available under the statute. On the contrary, these cases emphasized that a district court's remedial power should be exercised both to eradicate the effects of unlawful discrimination and to make the victims of past discrimination whole. Nor can Firefighters v. Stotts, 467 U.S. 561, be properly read to prohibit a court from ordering any kind of affirmative race-conscious relief that might benefit nonvictims. Such a reading would distort § 706(g)'s language and would deprive the courts of an important means of enforcing Title VII's guarantee of equal employment opportunity. Pp. 470-475.
measures, and do not unnecessarily trammel the interests of white employees. Pp. 475-479.
1. The District Court acted within the remedial authority granted by § 706(g) in establishing the Fund order and numerical goal at issue. Neither Title VII's plain language nor the legislative history supports a view that all remedies must be [106 S.Ct. 3024] limited to benefiting actual victims of discrimination. In cases such as this, where there is a history of egregious violations of Title VII, an injunction alone may be insufficient to remedy the violations. Pp. 483-484.
2. The Fund order and membership goal do not contravene the equal protection component of the Due Process Clause of the Fifth Amendment. The finding of the courts below that petitioners have committed egregious violations of Title VII clearly establishes a compelling governmental interest sufficient to justify the imposition of a racially classified remedy. Moreover, the District Court's remedy is narrowly tailored to the goal of eradicating petitioners' discrimination. The Fund order was carefully structured to vindicate the compelling governmental interests. As to the percentage goal, it is doubtful, given petitioners' history of discrimination, that any other effective remedy was...
Pan-american Refining Corooration And International Association Of Machinists, Local No. 1446, Or District 37, Affiliated With The A. F. Of L., 164 (1942)