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

Heading: reasonableness of conduct

Text: 37 Although Rudebusch has established an equal protection violation, we must still ask whether a reasonable official in Hughes' position would understand that what he is doing violates that right, Saucier, 533 U.S. at 201, 121 S.Ct. 2151, keeping in mind that officials will not be liable for mere mistakes in judgment, whether the mistake is one of fact or one of law. Butz, 438 U.S. at 507, 98 S.Ct. 2894. With this perspective in mind, we conclude that Hughes is entitled to qualified immunity. Our conclusion rests on a single factor — timing. The law in this area was not clearly established at the time Hughes made his decision nor did Hughes have the benefit of post-decision analyses and information. 38 We start with the proposition that at the time of the decision, the general rules were well enough established, for example, that the Fourteenth Amendment requires all racial classifications to survive strict scrutiny. See City of Richmond, 488 U.S. 469, 109 S.Ct. 706, 102 L.Ed.2d 854; Coral Constr. Co., 941 F.2d at 915-16 (applying strict scrutiny to county minority set-aside program). This is what we held on Hughes's interlocutory appeal. But the specific contours of the law pertaining to pay equity were not well developed or sufficiently clear at the time. See Anderson, 483 U.S. at 640, 107 S.Ct. 3034 (no qualified immunity only if contours of the right are sufficiently clear that a reasonable official would understand that what he is doing violates that right). Saucier makes it clear that this is the level at which we are to measure Hughes's response, because determining whether the law was clearly established must be undertaken in light of the specific context of the case, not as a broad general proposition. 533 U.S. at 201, 121 S.Ct. 2151. 39 Although there are numerous cases involving salary discrimination, many of them in educational institutions, most arise in the context of Title VII. These cases shed a fair amount of light on the persuasiveness of various regression analyses, but not much on applicable constitutional constraints. While these cases (and others) point up the serious weaknesses in NAU's approach, they do not necessarily indicate that the Constitution was implicated. One need only look at the complexity of the models at issue in reported cases, and the discussion on statistics and multiple regression in the Federal Judicial Center's Reference Manual on Scientific Evidence, 3 to realize how tricky it is to measure whether sex and ethnicity are a significant determinant of salary. Two more recent opinions, Maitland, 155 F.3d 1013, and Smith, 84 F.3d 672 (4th Cir. 1996), refine the parameters, but neither was around to guide Hughes's decision. 40 Rudebusch suggests that the law clearly prohibits adjustments to minority salaries without also giving consideration to non-minority faculty whose compensation falls below their predicted salaries for reasons wholly unrelated to racial discrimination. To begin, as a matter of law, courts have yet to consider for purposes of equal protection whether pay adjustments focused solely on disparities stemming from perceived discrimination in minority salaries violate the rights of those individuals whose salaries are not considered for adjustment. Thus, it cannot be said that the law was clearly established on this nuance of pay equity at the time Hughes implemented these adjustments. 41 It should now be clear, however, that a conspicuous imbalance in salaries is not manifest by a salary disparity which is not statistically significant and that, absent other evidence, it will not be objectively reasonable for a university official to approve a salary plan based on a flawed multiple regression analysis which shows no statistically significant salary discrimination. However, because qualified immunity is to protect `all but the plainly incompetent,' Saucier, 533 U.S. at 202, 121 S.Ct. 2151 (quoting Malley v. Briggs, 475 U.S. 335, 341, 106 S.Ct. 1092, 89 L.Ed.2d 271 (1986)), Hughes should not be denied his right to seek it on account of the statistical infirmities alone. 42 Our conclusion with respect to qualified immunity also rests on identifying what information was available to Hughes at the time he made his decision, as distinguished from analyses and information brought to light after the fact and in litigation. Rudebusch makes much of the district court's conclusion that the correct regression analysis of the Gantz/ Miller follow-up reveals that there is no statistically significant disparity between the salaries of males and females, but he fails to recognize — as the district court did not — that the relevant inquiry is not whether, in hindsight, Hughes acted unreasonably, but instead whether his decision was reasonable in light of the information that he possessed at the time of implementation. See Anderson, 483 U.S. at 641, 107 S.Ct. 3034; cf. Brewster, 149 F.3d at 977 (in order to ensure that government officials receive necessary guidance, courts should focus the qualified immunity inquiry at the level of implementation). 43 At the time Hughes made his decision, he was faced with a federally mandated and approved affirmative action plan that required him to increase the retention of minority faculty and to ensure pay equity as a means of integrating minority faculty into the University's community. He was faced with a situation where, despite a significant number of new hires, NAU still lost over a quarter of its minority faculty in the two years preceding the adjustments. Against this backdrop, Hughes was presented with the University's annual equity analysis. But in making his decision, Hughes did not have the Gantz/Miller report or any of its related analysis. 44 Because we recognize that the overriding purpose of the qualified immunity defense is the need to protect officials who are required to exercise their discretion, Butz, 438 U.S. at 506, 98 S.Ct. 2894, in light of the undeveloped state of the law at the time and the lack of the more compelling Gantz/Miller study, we are hesitant to second-guess Hughes' judgment, much less play the role of überstatistician only after all the results are in. Therefore, whether Hughes could have been legally mistaken as to the degree of statistical certainty required to demonstrate actual discrimination or whether he could have been factually mistaken as to the true extent of disparity justifying his decision, neither the law nor the facts were so clearly established at the time of his decision that Hughes reasonably should have known he was violating Rudebusch's constitutional rights. 45 Likewise, we conclude that Hughes reasonably exercised his discretion in tailoring the adjustments to address the perceived disparities. As a preliminary matter, we recognize that the district court allowed the issue of narrow tailoring to go to the jury, despite the Supreme Court's repeated efforts to stress the importance of resolving immunity questions at the earliest possible stage in litigation. Hunter v. Bryant, 502 U.S. 224, 227, 112 S.Ct. 534, 116 L.Ed.2d 589 (1991) (per curiam). Nevertheless, because the issue was resolved by the jury, under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 50, we review the evidence in the light most favorable to Hughes and reverse only if the evidence permits but one reasonable conclusion, one that is contrary to the jury's finding. Monroe v. City of Phoenix, 248 F.3d 851, 861 (9th Cir. 2001). Given the standard, reversal is not justified on this score.