Opinion ID: 1209439
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 6

Heading: Relationship Between the Statute and its Purpose.

Text: The preferential hire statute involved in Hicklin was struck down because, among other reasons, the statute was too broad. It applied not only to unemployed residents or residents enrolled in job training programs, but to all residents whether employed or unemployed, well trained or poorly trained. The Court observed that less restrictive alternatives were available: A highly skilled and educated resident who has never been unemployed is entitled to precisely the same preferential treatment as the unskilled, habitually unemployed Arctic Eskimo enrolled in a job-training program. If Alaska is to attempt to ease its unemployment problem by forcing employers within the state to discriminate against non-residents  again, a policy which may present serious constitutional questions  the means by which it does so must be more closely tailored to aid the unemployed the Act is intended to benefit. Even if a statute granting an employment preference to unemployed residents or to residents enrolled in job-training programs might be permissible, Alaska Hire's across-the-board grant of a job preference to all Alaskan residents clearly is not. Hicklin, 437 U.S. at 527-28, 98 S.Ct. at 2488, 57 L.Ed.2d at 406. By giving preferential treatment to residents who do not need it, the present statute suffers from the same vice as that struck down by the United States Supreme Court in Hicklin. [9]