Opinion ID: 676060
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: the reverse discrimination litigation

Text: 42 The district court's approval of the consent decrees, and our refusal to allow the BFA to intervene, brought forth a collection of cases that has come to be known as the Birmingham Reverse Discrimination Employment Litigation. In these cases, a number of male, non-black City employees collaterally attacked the decrees and the affirmative action programs adopted under them. See In re Birmingham Reverse Discrimination Employment Litig., 833 F.2d 1492, 1495 (11th Cir.1987), aff'd sub nom. Martin v. Wilks, 490 U.S. 755, 109 S.Ct. 2180, 104 L.Ed.2d 835 (1989). The United States, despite its status as a signatory of the consent decrees, also brought suit against the City, lodging allegations similar to those of the individual plaintiffs. Id., 833 F.2d at 1496; cf. In re Birmingham Reverse Discrimination Employment Litig., 37 Fair Empl.Prac.Cas. (BNA) 1, 8, 1985 WL 1415 (N.D.Ala.1985) (permitting the United States to side with the reverse discrimination plaintiffs on the issue of whether the City was violating the decree). These cases were heard by the same judge who had heard the earlier consent-decree cases. 43 Prior to trial, the district court rejected the reverse discrimination plaintiffs' collateral challenge to the legality of the decrees. See In re Birmingham Reverse Discrimination Employment Litig., 37 Fair Empl.Prac.Cas. (BNA) at 3 & n. 6. Instead, the district court restricted the plaintiffs' action to the questions of whether the City or the Board had violated the decrees or had granted illegal preferences that were not required by the decrees. Id. at 3-4. At the close of the plaintiffs' case, the court further limited the action by dismissing for lack of evidence all claims against the Board. See Martin v. Wilks, 490 U.S. 755, 779 n. 16, 109 S.Ct. 2180, 2194 n. 16, 104 L.Ed.2d 835 (1989) (Stevens, J., dissenting). This left the City as the only defendant. 44 At trial, the plaintiffs had claimed that some blacks were promoted over more-qualified non-blacks despite the fact that the City decree specifically did not require the City to promote a less qualified person, in preference to a person who is demonstrably better qualified based upon the results of a job related selection procedure. After trial, the district court found for the City, holding that the City had shown that its employment actions were required by the decrees. Id. at 780-81, 109 S.Ct. at 2194-95. The district court in effect decided that the provision quoted by the plaintiffs applied only if job related selection procedures were in place. In re Birmingham Reverse Discrimination Employment Litig., 833 F.2d at 1497. Although the district court agreed that [m]ost but not all of those whites who were not selected for [the challenged promotions] had higher test scores than the blacks who were selected, the court pointed out that the tests on which these scores were based had never been shown to be valid predictors of future job performance. The court further noted that the City  'does not use a job-related selection procedure in evaluating the qualifications of certified candidates [and] has made no effort to develop ... such a procedure.'  In re Birmingham Reverse Discrimination Employment Litig., 833 F.2d at 1497 (quoting the district court's December 26, 1985, order (emphasis and alteration added)). Accordingly, the district court rejected the plaintiffs' assertion that demonstrably better qualified whites had been passed over. 45 On appeal, this Court reversed. We observed that the district judge treated the plaintiffs as if they were bound by the consent decrees, rendering the plaintiffs unable to challenge the decrees' validity, and limiting their action to a claim that the City had granted racial preferences beyond those mandated by the City decree. Id. at 1496. This limitation was unfair to the male, non-black plaintiffs, we reasoned, because they had not participated in the negotiation or signing of the consent decrees. Id. at 1498-99. To give the reverse-discrimination plaintiffs their day in court, we ruled that they must be allowed to bring an action challenging the validity of the decrees. Id. at 1499-1500. We therefore directed the district court to re-examine the legality of the decrees under the heightened scrutiny applicable to voluntary government affirmative actions plans. Id. at 1500-01. Finally, we ruled that the United States was estopped from collaterally attacking the decrees by its status as a signatory. Id. at 1501. [I]f the United States believes that the decrees should be modified based on changed circumstances, its remedy ... is to seek modification in the court which retained jurisdiction over the cases in which the decrees arose. Id. at 1501. 46 Our decision was upheld by the Supreme Court in Martin v. Wilks, 490 U.S. at 769, 109 S.Ct. at 2188. In affirming our reasoning, the Wilks Court implicitly suggested that plaintiffs in future cases could avoid such collateral challenges by insuring that all interested parties were joined from the outset. See id. at 765-67, 109 S.Ct. at 2187. 47 The district court subsequently held a new trial on the reverse discrimination plaintiffs' challenge. At the conclusion of that trial, the district court again ruled in favor of the City. Bennett v. Arrington, 806 F.Supp. 926, 931 (N.D.Ala.1992). Applying strict scrutiny, id. at 928, the district court found that the City had significant evidence of past discrimination to support its affirmative action program. Id. at 929. The court further found the affirmative action provisions were narrowly tailored because the City had first tried alternative measures, and because these provisions were both flexible and temporary. Id. at 929-30. That ruling was recently reversed by another panel of this Court. See In re Birmingham Reverse Discrimination Employment Litig., 20 F.3d 1525 (11th Cir.1994).