Opinion ID: 780155
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: unnecessary trammeling

Text: 53 Just as Johnson articulated the unnecessarily trammeled requirement in the context of affirmative action promotion, both the Fourth and the Eight Circuits in the pay equity context also adopted a requirement that efforts to remedy a manifest imbalance in race and sex-based pay disparities cannot survive Title VII scrutiny if they unnecessarily trammel[] the rights of [white] male employees. Maitland, 155 F.3d at 1016 (quoting Johnson, 480 U.S. at 637, 639, 107 S.Ct. 1442); Smith, 84 F.3d at 676 (same). We agree, but note that neither Maitland nor Smith reached this issue or otherwise determined whether targeted pay adjustments would so trammel the rights of white male faculty. We review de novo the district court's grant of summary judgment in favor of the University on this issue. Balint v. Carson City, 180 F.3d 1047, 1050 (9th Cir.1999) (en banc). 54 In the traditional settings of Title VII jurisprudence — hirings, promotions, and set-aside programs — courts have made the obvious point that whatever right is at stake, it is not some absolute entitlement to the position or contract; in other words, denial of the benefit would not unsettle any firmly rooted expectation of promotion. Johnson, 480 U.S. at 638, 107 S.Ct. 1442; Higgins, 823 F.2d at 357. Rather, what is at stake is the opportunity to compete for an otherwise available employment opportunity. Thus, Johnson's approval of a hiring plan that merely authorizes that consideration be given to affirmative action concerns when evaluating qualified applicants. 480 U.S. at 638, 107 S.Ct. 1442; see also Gilligan v. Dep't of Labor, 81 F.3d 835, 839 (9th Cir.1996) (noting in promotion context that [i]f ... gender was the exclusive factor and that the position ... was, in fact, unavailable to [the plaintiff] because he was male, then the Department would be guilty of illegal discrimination). 55 Citing this authority, Rudebusch argues that the University discriminated against him when it did not take into consideration the pay concerns of white male faculty during the remedial adjustment process. Cf. Maitland, 155 F.3d at 1015 (noting, without attaching any legal significance to the fact, that a similar adjustment scheme allowed any academic employee to file a claim seeking a salary increase under a manifest inequity provision of a court-ordered settlement). To begin, neither Rudebusch nor the class of plaintiffs have suggested that they either requested or were in fact denied a request for consideration of separate adjustments. But, to the extent that they claim their injury arose from the University's failure to consider them for adjustments in the first instance, we recognize the need to explain how the pay equity situation presented here is fundamentally different from the promotional context upon which their argument is premised. 56 In the circumstance of a promotion, where there is competition for a finite position or where the benefits of promotion will have lasting employment consequences, appropriating the opportunity exclusively for purposes of alleviating racial or gender-based disparities may trammel upon the excluded employee's legitimate expectation to compete equally for the position. See Johnson, 480 U.S. at 640, 107 S.Ct. 1442 (plan should visit minimal intrusion on the legitimate expectations of other employees). This same result might even be the case if, for instance, a legislature appropriated funds for across-the-board or merit-based raises which a state employer then distributed exclusively to minority or women employees. But none of these concerns are presented in this case. 57 Here, there would have been no opportunity or funds available for any pay adjustments but for the University's decision to address the manifest imbalance between the salaries of white male professors and their female and minority counterparts in the first instance. In other words, the University's decision to scrounge its budget for unused funds and make adjustments to women and minorities' salaries was driven solely by the perceived need to make such adjustments. Allowing Rudebusch and the white male plaintiffs to claim that their exclusion from consideration absolutely barred their advancement would permit them to recharacterize NAU's situation as an opportunity for advancement when, in fact, such an opportunity never existed in the first instance. Cf. Ende v. Bd. of Regents, 757 F.2d 176, 181 (7th Cir.1985) (endorsing a similar adjustment scheme for purposes of an Equal Pay Act claim brought by male faculty, concluding that it determines the incremental adjustment to females' salaries necessary to remedy the effects of past sex discrimination and eliminate sex as a determiner of salary. The formula merely [brings] the women to a salary level they would have reached in ordinary course if they had been men and not subjected to sex discrimination. It makes no sense to apply the formula to men in this context.). 58 The effort here was a one-time adjustment. It was separate from the previous across-the-board raise and it was separate from ongoing evaluation and promotion. The plan presented no absolute bar to [the] advancement of the white male plaintiffs, Johnson, 480 U.S. at 637-38, 107 S.Ct. 1442, and, as in Johnson, the male faculty retained their positions at the same salary and were eligible for future promotions. No quotas were involved and the plan cannot be viewed as an effort to maintain a certain equilibrium in the workforce. 59 One thing is clear in this case: Whatever the reason, white male faculty who were earning less than their predicted salaries were not doing so because of their race or sex, or at least they have not demonstrated as much. Despite this reality, Rudebusch would have us hold that anytime an employer attempts to address a manifest imbalance in the pay equity context, it must simultaneously consider the unrelated concerns of those employees who have not demonstrated such a legally cognizable imbalance. Such logic would all but eliminate employer efforts to attain pay equity as required by law. Under Rudebusch's analysis, there could never be any catch up adjustments without a concomitant adjustment or consideration of the entire employee pool. The result would be perpetuation, not elimination, of pay disparity. Rather, under the circumstances of this case, we conclude that Rudebusch's concern is better characterized as a potential problem with the nature of the remedial measures themselves than whether the rights of white male faculty were unnecessarily trammeled.