Source: https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/442/256/case.html
Timestamp: 2018-06-25 15:56:31
Document Index: 229468985

Matched Legal Cases: ['§ 1983', '§ 23', '§ 14', '§ 2', '§ 23', '§ 23', '§ 23', '§ 23', '§ 5', '§ 7']

Personnel Adm'r of Massachusetts v. Feeney, (full text) :: 442 U.S. 256 (1979) :: Justia US Supreme Court Center
Justia › US Law › US Case Law › US Supreme Court › Volume 442 › Personnel Adm'r of Massachusetts v. Feeney › Case
The appellee Helen B. Feeney is not a veteran. She brought this action pursuant to 42 U.S.C. § 1983, alleging that the absolute preference formula established in ch. 31, § 23, inevitably operates to exclude women from consideration for the best Massachusetts civil service jobs, and us unconstitutionally denies them the equal protection of the laws. [Footnote 2] The three-judge District Court agreed, one judge dissenting. Anthony v. Massachusetts, 415 F.Supp. 485 (Mass.1976). [Footnote 3]
Upon remand, the District Court, one judge concurring and one judge again dissenting, concluded that a veterans' hiring preference is inherently nonneutral because it favors a class from which women have traditionally been excluded, and that
The Federal Government and virtually all of the States grant some sort of hiring preference to veterans. [Footnote 6] The Massachusetts preference, which is loosely termed an "absolute lifetime" preference, is among the most generous [Footnote 7] It
applies to all positions in the State's classified civil service, which constitute approximately 60% of the public jobs in the State. It is available to "any person, male or female, including a nurse," who was honorably discharged from the United States Armed Forces after at least 90 days of active service, at least one day of which was during "wartime." [Footnote 8] Persons who are deemed veterans and who are otherwise qualified for a particular civil service job may exercise the preference at any time and as many times as they wish. [Footnote 9]
Rank on the eligible list and availability for employment are the sole factors that determine which candidates are considered for appointment to an official civil service position. When a public agency has a vacancy, it requisitions a list of "certified eligibles" from the state personnel division. Under formulas prescribed by civil service rules, a small number of candidates from the top of an appropriate list, three if there is only one vacancy, are certified. The appointing agency
The veterans' hiring preference in Massachusetts, as in other jurisdictions, has traditionally been justified as a measure designed to reward veterans for the sacrifice of military service, to ease the transition from military to civilian life, to encourage patriotic service, and to attract loyal and well disciplined people to civil service occupations. [Footnote 12] See, e.g., Hutcheson v. Director of Civil Service, 361 Mass. 48, 281 N.E.2d 53 (1972). The Massachusetts law dates back to 1884, when the State, as part of its first civil service legislation, gave a statutory preference to civil service applicants who were Civil War veterans if their qualifications were equal to those of nonveterans. 1884 Mass. Acts, ch. 320, § 14 (sixth). This tie-breaking provision blossomed into a truly absolute preference in 1895, when the State enacted its first general veterans' preference law and exempted veterans from all merit selection requirements. 1895 Mass Acts, ch. 51, § 2. In response to a challenge brought by a male nonveteran, this statute was declared violative of state constitutional provisions guaranteeing that government should be
Since 1919, the preference has been repeatedly amended to cover persons who served in subsequent wars, declared or
The first Massachusetts veterans' preference statute defined the term "veterans" in gender-neutral language. See
When the first general veterans' preference statute was adopted in 1896, there were no women veterans. [Footnote 18] The statute, however, covered only Civil War veterans. Most of them were beyond middle age, and relatively few were actively competing for public employment. [Footnote 19] Thus, the impact of
Notwithstanding the apparent attempts by Massachusetts to include as many military women as possible within the scope of the preference, the statute today benefits an overwhelmingly male class. This is attributable in some measure to the variety of federal statutes, regulations, and policies that have restricted the number of women who could enlist in the United States Armed Forces, [Footnote 21] and largely to the simple
When this litigation was commenced, then, over 98% of the veterans in Massachusetts were male; only 1.8% were female. And over one-quarter of the Massachusetts population were veterans. During the decade between 1963 and 1973, when the appellee was actively participating in the State's merit selection system, 47,005 new permanent appointments were made in the classified official service. Forty-three percent of those hired were women, and 57% were men. Of the women appointed, 1.8% were veterans, while 54% of the men had veteran status. A large unspecified percentage of the female appointees were serving in lower paying positions for which males traditionally had not applied. [Footnote 22]
The equal protection guarantee of the Fourteenth Amendment does not take from the States all power of classification. Massachusetts Bd. of Retirement v. Muria, 427 U. S. 307, 427 U. S. 314. Most laws classify, and many affect certain groups
Certain classifications, however, in themselves supply a reason to infer antipathy. Race is the paradigm. A racial classification, regardless of purported motivation, is presumptively invalid, and can be upheld only upon an extraordinary justification. Brown. v. Board of Education, 347 U. S. 483; McLaughlin v. Florida, 379 U. S. 184. This rule applies as well to a classification that is ostensibly neutral but is an obvious pretext for racial discrimination. Yick Wo v. Hopkins, 118 U. S. 356; Guinn v. United States, 238 U. S. 347; cf. Lane v. Wilson, 307 U. S. 268; Gomillion v. Lightfoot, 364 U. S. 339. But, as was made clear in Washington v. Davis, 426 U. S. 229, and Arlington Heights v. Metropolitan Housing Dev. Corp., 429 U. S. 252, even if a neutral law has a disproportionately adverse effect upon a racial minority, it is unconstitutional under the Equal Protection Clause only if that impact can be traced to a discriminatory purpose.
The cases of Washington v. Davis, supra, and Arlington Heights v. Metropolitan Hosing Dev. Corp., supra, recognize that, when a neutral law has a disparate impact upon a group that has historically been the victim of discrimination, an unconstitutional purpose may still be at work. But those cases signaled no departure from the settled rule that the Fourteenth Amendment guarantees equal laws, not equal results. Davis upheld a job-related employment test that white people passed in proportionately greater numbers than Negroes, for there had been no showing that racial discrimination entered into the establishment or formulation of the test. Arlington Heights upheld a zoning board decision that tended to perpetuate racially segregated housing patterns,
The question whether ch. 31, § 23, establishes a classification that is overtly or covertly based upon gender must first be considered. The appellee has conceded that ch. 31, § 23, is neutral on its face. She has also acknowledged that state hiring preferences for veterans are not per se invalid, for she has limited her challenge to the absolute lifetime preference that Massachusetts provides to veterans. The District Court made two central findings that are relevant here: first, that ch. 31, § 23, serves legitimate and worthy purposes; second, that the absolute preference was not established for the purpose of discriminating against women. The appellee has thus acknowledged, and the District Court has thus found,
Moreover, as the District Court implicitly found, the purposes of the statute provide the surest explanation for its impact. Just as there are cases in which impact alone can unmask an invidious classification, cf. Yick Wo v. Hopkins, 118 U. S. 356, there are others, in which -- notwithstanding impact -- the legitimate noninvidious purposes of a law cannot be missed. This is one. The distinction made by ch. 31, § 23, is, as it seems to be, quite simply between veterans and nonveterans, not between men and women.
To the extent that the status of veteran is one that few
To be sure, this case is unusual in that it involves a law that, by design, is not neutral. The law overtly prefers veterans as such. As opposed to the written test at issue in Davis, it does not purport to define a job-related characteristic. To the contrary, it confers upon a specifically described group -- perceived to be particularly deserving -- a competitive headstart. But the District Court found, and the appellee has not disputed, that this legislative choice was legitimate. The basic distinction between veterans and nonveterans, having been found not gender-based, and the goals of the
This rhetorical question implies that a negative answer is obvious, but it is not. The decision to grant a preference to veterans was, of course, "intentional." So, necessarily, did an adverse impact upon nonveterans follow from that decision. And it cannot seriously be argued that the Legislature of Massachusetts could have been unaware that most veterans are men. It would thus be disingenuous to say that the adverse consequences of this legislation for women were unintended in the sense that they were not volitional or in the sense that they were not foreseeable.
To the contrary, the statutory history shows that the benefit of the preference was consistently offered to "any person" who was a veteran. That benefit has been extended to women under a very broad statutory definition of the term veteran. [Footnote 26] The preference formula itself, which is the focal
Veterans' hiring preferences represent an awkward -- and, many argue, unfair -- exception to the widely shared view that merit and merit alone should prevail in the employment policies of government. After a war, such laws have been enacted virtually without opposition. During peacetime, they inevitably have come to be viewed in many quarters as undemocratic and unwise. [Footnote 28] Absolute and permanent preferences, as the troubled history of this law demonstrates, have always been subject to the objection that they give the veteran
Although acknowledging that, in some circumstances, discriminatory intent may be inferred from the inevitable or foreseeable impact of a statute, ante at 442 U. S. 279 n. 25, the Court concludes that no such intent has been established here. I cannot agree. In my judgment, Massachusetts' choice of an absolute veterans' preference system evinces purposeful
Absent an omniscience not commonly attributed to the judiciary, it will often be impossible to ascertain the sole or even dominant purpose of a given statute. See McGinnis v. Royster, 410 U. S. 263, 410 U. S. 276-277 (1973); Ely, Legislative and Administrative Motivation in Constitutional Law, 79 Yale L.J. 1205, 1214 (1970). Thus, the critical constitutional inquiry is not whether an illicit consideration was the primary or but-for cause of a decision, but rather whether it had an appreciable role in shaping a given legislative enactment. Where there is
As the District Court recognized, this consequence follows foreseeably, indeed inexorably, from the long history of policies severely limiting women's participation in the military. [Footnote 2/1]
Clearly, that burden was not sustained here. The legislative history of the statute reflects the Commonwealth's patent appreciation of the impact the preference system would have on women, and an equally evident desire to mitigate that impact only with respect to certain traditionally female occupations. Until 1971, the statute and implementing civil service
Thus, for over 70 years, the Commonwealth has maintained, as an integral part of its veterans' preference system, an exemption relegating female civil service applicants to occupations traditionally filled by women. Such a statutory scheme both reflects and perpetuates precisely the kind of archaic assumptions about women's roles which we have previously held invalid. See Orr v. Orr, 440 U. S. 268 (1979); Califano v. Goldfarb, 430 U. S. 199, 430 U. S. 210-211 (1977); Stanton v. Stanton, 421 U. S. 7, 421 U. S. 14 (1975); Weinberger v. Wiesenfeld, 420 U. S. 636, 420 U. S. 645 (1975). Particularly when viewed against the range of less discriminatory alternatives available to assist veterans, [Footnote 2/2] Massachusetts' choice of a formula that so severely restricts public employment opportunities for women cannot reasonably be thought gender-neutral. Cf. Albemarle Paper Co. v. Moody, supra, at 422 U. S. 425. The Court's conclusion to the contrary -- that "nothing in the record" evinces a "collateral goal of keeping women in a stereotypic and predefined place in the
With respect to the first interest, facilitating veterans' transition to civilian status, the statute is plainly overinclusive. Cf. Trimble v. Gordon, 430 U. S. 762, 430 U. S. 770-772 (1977); Jimenez v. Weinberger, 417 U. S. 628, 417 U. S. 637 (1974). By conferring a permanent preference, the legislation allows veterans to invoke their advantage repeatedly, without regard to their date of discharge. As the record demonstrates, a substantial
Finally, the Commonwealth's third interest, rewarding veterans, does not "adequately justify the salient features" of this preference system. Craig v. Boren, supra at 429 U. S. 202-203. See Orr v. Orr, supra at 440 U. S. 281. Where a particular statutory scheme visits substantial hardship on a class long subject to discrimination, the legislation cannot be sustained unless "carefully tuned to alternative considerations.'" Trimble v. Gordon, supra at 430 U. S. 772. See Caban v. Mohammed, 441 U. S. 380, 441 U. S. 392-393, n. 13 (1979); Mathews v. Lucas, 427 U. S. 495 (1976). Here, there are a wide variety of less discriminatory means by which Massachusetts could effect its compensatory purposes. For example, a point preference system, such as that maintained by many States and the Federal Government,
see n. 2, supra, or an absolute preference for a limited duration, would reward veterans without excluding all qualified women from upper level civil service positions. Apart from public employment, the Commonwealth, can, and does, afford assistance to veterans in various ways, including tax abatements, educational subsidies, and special programs for needy veterans. See Mass.Gen.Laws Ann., ch. 59, § 5, Fifth (West Supp. 1979); Mass.Gen.Laws Ann., ch. 69, §§ 7, 7B (West Supp. 1979); and Mass.Gen.Laws Ann., chs. 115, 115A (West 1969 and Supp. 1978). Unlike these and similar benefits, the costs of which are distributed across the taxpaying public generally, the Massachusetts statute exacts a substantial price from a discrete group of individuals who have long been subject to employment discrimination, [Footnote 2/5] and who, "because of circumstances totally beyond their control, have [had] little if any chance of becoming members of the preferred class." 415 F.Supp. at 499. See n. 1, supra.
Although it is relevant that the preference statute also disadvantages a substantial group of men, see ante at 442 U. S. 281 (STEVENS, J., concurring), it is equally pertinent that 47% of Massachusetts men over 18 are veterans, as compared to 0.8% of Massachusetts women. App. 83. Given this disparity, and the indicia of intent noted supra at 442 U. S. 284-285, the absolute number of men denied preference cannot be dispositive, especially since they have not faced the barriers to achieving veteran status confronted by women. See n. 1, supra.
Personnel Adm'r of Massachusetts v. Feeney
A state does not discriminate against women by establishing an employment preference for veterans.
Feeney was a civil servant in Massachusetts who did not receive advancement because of a Massachuset...