Opinion ID: 1302380
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: The Legal Significance of the City's Affirmative Action Plan With Regards to its Race-Based Employment Decision.

Text: The city urges that, because its action in preferring Thompson to Davis was taken pursuant to a bona fide affirmative action plan, the use of race in the employment decision was not employed with a discriminatory motive but rather with a nondiscriminatory motive. If good faith were a controlling factor, this argument has some appeal. But the extent to which affirmative action plans may be utilized to influence employment decisions on racial grounds is strictly circumscribed by existing law. The existence of a formally adopted policy by a public employer that is denominated an affirmative action plan is not a license to make race-based employment decisions favoring employees of a minority race over white employees. Such a plan may not be accepted as a nondiscriminatory rationale for employment decisions if it authorizes hiring decisions in which minority group status provides a trump card against superior qualifications on the part of a competing applicant for a job. Johnson v. Transportation Agency, 480 U.S. 616, 640-41, 107 S.Ct. 1442, 1456, 94 L.Ed.2d 615, 636-37 (1987). Affirmative action programs by entities operating under color of state law must (1) serve a compelling governmental interest, Palmore v. Sidoti, 466 U.S. 429, 432-33, 104 S.Ct. 1879, 1881-82, 80 L.Ed.2d 421, 425 (1984), and (2) be narrowly tailored to the achievement of that goal. Adarand Constructors v. Pena, 515 U.S. ___, ____, 115 S.Ct. 2097, 2117, 132 L.Ed.2d 158, 188 (1995); Fullilove v. Klutznick, 448 U.S. 448, 480, 100 S.Ct. 2758, 2776, 65 L.Ed.2d 902, 925 (1980). Remedying past societal discrimination does not qualify as an appropriate state interest. Remedial action must relate to past discrimination by the particular public employer. Wygant v. Jackson Bd. of Educ., 476 U.S. 267, 106 S.Ct. 1842, 90 L.Ed.2d 260 (1986). Remedial affirmative action for past discrimination by a particular employer must only be aimed at those position areas in which members of minority groups are not proportionately represented considering their availability. Johnson, 480 U.S. at 622, 107 S.Ct. at 1446, 94 L.Ed.2d at 625. Davis argued in the district court and urges in this court that the affirmative action plan of the city, either as written or as applied in this case, cannot be justified by reason of documented past racial discrimination in the promotion of employees in the street department of the City of Waterloo. In evaluating this argument, we agree that consideration of race is permissible only when that consideration is designed to remedy a conspicuous racial imbalance in traditionally segregated job categories. Setser, 657 F.2d at 968. A mere imbalance between one identifiable racial group and another in an employer's labor force or in particular positions in that labor force does not alone make out a case of nondiscriminatory hiring or promotion in the selection of a member of the underrepresented group. It has not been demonstrated by the utilization data available for the street department that there was any underutilization of minority applicants, as to hiring or promotion, either before the city's affirmative action plan was adopted or thereafter. The city's affirmative action officer, Cora Turner, conceded in her testimony that this could not be shown by available statistics. Ms. Turner's definition of underutilization of members of a protected class was as follows. She testified that in making this decision she first determines if there is a member of a minority race on the certified list to fill a position and then determines whether the job opening is within a classification that she finds to be presently underrepresented by minority workers. If she deems that it is, then the personnel department automatically recommends that the member of the minority race be promoted. The job classification that was utilized in the present case was that of foreman without regard to the type of foreman position involved. Application of this rationale ignores the differences in requirements and qualifications for each of the nine foreman positions within the public works department and parks department. It also disregards the apparent parity between the available labor market and black males employed by the city in skilled craft positions. As noted in Johnson, 480 U.S. at 626, 107 S.Ct. at 1453, 94 L.Ed.2d at 633-34, [i]f a plan failed to take distinctions in qualifications into account in providing guidance for actual employment decisions, it would improperly dictate mere blind hiring by the numbers. In the present case, the city clearly did not assess differences in job qualifications and merely reflected on the fact that none of the nine foreman positions, which were in no way related as an employment unit, were held by a minority race member. It promoted Mr. Thompson solely because he would provide a minority presence within this category of unrelated foreman positions. The district court also rejected the city's claim of justification under the affirmative action plan on the ground that the plan in no way purports to authorize what the city did in the present case. We fully agree with the court's conclusion in that regard. The city's affirmative action plan seeks to prevent potential racial discrimination through the elimination of barriers to minority race applicants. It does not allow race, as such, to weigh affirmatively in the hiring or promotion process. Indeed, the plan expressly forbids such considerations. The plan states as its objective an attempt to redress any imbalance in representation in classification disproportionate numbers of one sex or race that may be caused by artificial barriers of attitude or custom. With respect to hiring selection, the plan expressly provides that hiring shall be accomplished without regard to race, color, national origin, religion, sex, or handicap; except for those positions where any of the foregoing have been determined to be a bona fide occupational qualification. With respect to promotion, the plan provides that all promotions and other personnel actions will be made without regard to race, color, creed, national origin, religion, sex, age, ancestry, disability, marital status, physical or mental handicap or lawful political affiliation. The city argues that its affirmative action plan is valid because it does not require the council to select based on race. This argument misses the point. The facts disclose that the council in this instance did select based entirely on race. The affirmative action plan does not, nor could it, justify that action. For all of the reasons we have discussed, we conclude that the city may not rely upon its affirmative action plan as justification for having made race a controlling consideration in promoting Thompson instead of Davis. The district court properly concluded that the city's action in that employment decision discriminated against Davis in violation of Iowa Code section 216.6, 42 U.S.C. § 2000e-2(m), and 42 U.S.C. § 1983.