Opinion ID: 1515484
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 7

Heading: The Constitutionality of Remedial Racial Quotas

Text: I turn now to the constitutionality of employing quotas based on racial criteria as a remedy for past discrimination. The majority did not find it necessary to reach the question of their legality under the fourteenth amendment to the United States Constitution because it found them violative of Article I, paragraph 5 of the New Jersey Constitution. Although I have reservations about the Director's order which lead me to alter its terms in one respect, ante at 18, I have no such doubts about the validity of racial quotas under either the State or Federal Constitution when they are essential to correct discrimination against minority groups. As the majority interprets the express and unambiguous language of N.J. Const. (1947), Art. I, ¶ 5, the State can never rely upon race as a permissible criterion for inflicting a loss or burden upon an individual in society. It concludes that whether the purpose is benign, as in reverse discrimination, or malign, as in official segregation, a racial classification is equally pernicious as a violation of the fundamental precept in a democratic society that merit, not skin color, should determine an individual's place in society. Ante at 22. It operates insidiously towards whites and blacks alike, depriving more qualified whites of a fair opportunity for employment or advancement and casting aspersions on the abilities of those blacks who benefit from preferential treatment. Moreover, it suggests an unworkable and undesirable goal of proportional representation of minority groups in all institutions of society. In any case, the constitutional provision itself is regarded as straightforward: No person shall be ... discriminated against in the exercise of any civil ... right ... because of ... race    Nevertheless, our prior decisions suggest that we have not always viewed the State Constitution as strictly color blind. In N.J. Builders, Owners and Managers Ass'n v. Blair, supra , the plaintiffs contended that a rule promulgated by the Division on Civil Rights was invalid under N.J.S.A. 10:5-12 because it required annual reports from multiple dwelling owners concerning the racial designation of tenants and applicants. A literal reading of our Constitution would have prohibited the rule, but we refused to ignore the salutary purposes of the reporting requirement in ending racial discrimination. Justice Mountain, writing for a unanimous Court, said: It is now generally accepted that despite earlier statements describing the Constitution as being color blind,    those who seek to end racial discrimination must often be acutely color conscious. [60 N.J. at 336; emphasis supplied.] This holding was consistent with our earlier decision in Morean v. Bd. of Montclair, 42 N.J. 237 (1964). There, we readily sustained a plan for the transfer and assignment of pupils within a school district, although the proposal was admittedly racially motivated and avowedly sought to control racial balance as among the several junior high schools. We rejected the contention that such action, directed to only some of the pupils within the district, was in violation of the equal protection clause. This Court said: Constitutional color blindness may be wholly apt when the frame of reference is an attack on official efforts toward segregation; it is not generally apt when the attack is on official efforts toward the avoidance of segregation. [42 N.J. at 243-244] Moreover, absent from the Court's holding in N.J. Builders, Owners and Managers Ass'n v. Blair, supra , was any basis for a distinction between plans for school desegregation and remedies for employment discrimination. Justice Mountain approvingly cited Porcelli v. Titus, 431 F. 2d 1254 (3 Cir.1970), cert. den. 402 U.S. 944, 91 S.Ct. 1612, 29 L.Ed. 2d 112 (1971), and Contractors Ass'n of Eastern Pa. v. Secretary of Labor, 442 F. 2d 159 (3 Cir. 1971), cert. den. 404 U.S. 854, 92 S.Ct. 98, 30 L.Ed. 2d 95 (1971), even though they approve analogous instances of color-conscious relief which were ostensibly at odds with the statutory language. 60 N.J. at 337. It should be clear under our own Constitution, as it has been under the Federal Constitution, that the ideal of a color blind society does not rule out the recognition of racial factors in fashioning remedies. [17] We should heed one court's succinct resolution of this apparent paradox: The Constitution is both color blind and color conscious. To avoid conflict with the equal protection clause, a classification that denies a benefit, causes harm, or imposes a burden must not be based on race. In that sense, the Constitution is color blind. But the Constitution is color conscious to prevent discrimination being perpetuated and to undo the effect of past discrimination. [ U.S. v. Jefferson County Board of Educ., 372 F. 2d 836, 876-877 (5 Cir.1966); emphasis supplied.] However, because I find that Article I, ¶ 5 of the State Constitution should be interpreted no more stringently than the Fourteenth Amendment in restricting preferential relief for past discrimination, see Morean v. Montclair Board of Education, supra, 42 N.J. at 242-243, I turn now to the more important question  whether, and under what circumstances, the Equal Protection Clause permits the use of racially preferential hiring and promotion methods. Under equal protection analysis, it is axiomatic that governmental classifications based on racial criteria are inherently suspect and subject to the most rigid scrutiny. McLaughlin v. Florida, 379 U.S. 184, 85 S.Ct. 283, 13 L.Ed. 2d 222 (1964); Bolling v. Sharpe, 347 U.S. 497, 74 S.Ct. 693, 98 L.Ed. 884 (1954); Sweatt v. Painter, 339 U.S. 629, 70 S.Ct. 848, 94 L.Ed. 1114 (1950). Suspect classifications may be sustained only when the State can demonstrate that they are required to achieve a compelling state interest, Loving v. Virginia, 388 U.S. 1, 87 S.Ct. 1817, 18 L.Ed. 2d 1010 (1967), and that no neutral classification can serve the same end. See Shelton v. Tucker, 364 U.S. 479, 81 S.Ct. 247, 5 L.Ed. 2d 231 (1960). Since the Japanese Internment cases, the United States Supreme Court has nominally adhered to the position that an overriding governmental interest may justify imposition of burdens on a single racial group, Korematsu v. United States, 323 U.S. 214, 65 S.Ct. 193, 89 L.Ed. 194 (1944); Hirabayashi v. United States, 320 U.S. 81, 63 S.Ct. 1375, 87 L.Ed. 1774 (1943), but application of the strict scrutiny test has failed to produce any other acceptable justification for invidious discrimination. See DeFunis v. Odegaard, 416 U.S. 312, 340 n. 20, 94 S.Ct. 1704, 1717, 40 L.Ed. 2d 164, 182 (1974) (Douglas, J., dissenting). Moreover, the summary invalidation of various forms of state-enforced segregation in the wake of Brown v. Board of Education, 347 U.S. 483, 74 S.Ct. 686, 98 L.Ed. 873 (1954), suggested that reliance on racial criteria was never constitutionally permissible. [18] However, as courts have faced the task of enforcing the command in Brown to end segregated dual school systems, reliance on racial classifications became unavoidable. The Supreme Court recognized this fact in Swann v. Charlotte-Mecklenburg Board of Education, 402 U.S. 1, 91 S.Ct. 1267, 28 L.Ed. 2d 554 (1971), when it approved a desegregation plan which employed mathematical ratios reflecting the racial composition of the school population in assigning children to schools. Moreover, it admitted the necessity of racial classifications in the context of voting rights when it stated that a court had not merely the power but the duty to render a decree which will so far as possible eliminate the discriminatory effects of the past as well as bar like discrimination in the future. [19] Louisiana v. United States, 380 U.S. 145, 154, 85 S.Ct. 817, 822, 13 L.Ed. 2d 709, 715 (1965). See Brooks v. Beto, 366 F. 2d 1 (5 Cir.1966) (race of grand jurors recognized); Norwalk CORE v. Norwalk Redevelopment Agency, 395 F. 2d 920 (2 Cir.1968) (race of tenants for public housing). Finally, courts have found authority for remedial preferential treatment in the genesis of the fourteenth amendment, recalling the historical fact that the central purpose of the Fourteenth Amendment was to eliminate racial discrimination emanating from official sources in the States. McLaughlin v. Florida, supra, 379 U.S. at 192, 85 S.Ct. at 288, 13 L.Ed. 2d at 228. See Associated General Contractors Ass'n of Mass., Inc. v. Altshuler, supra, 490 F. 2d at 16. Thus, the remedial feature of racial quotas in employment cases sets them apart from preferential schemes designed merely to attain a racially balanced work force, and justifies reliance on racial criteria. See, e.g., United States v. Wood, Wire & Metal Lath. Int. Un., Loc. No. 46, 471 F. 2d 408, 413 (2 Cir.1973); Anderson v. San Francisco Unified School District, 357 F. Supp. 248, 250 (N.D. Cal. 1972); Local 53 of International Association of Heat & Frost I. & A. Workers v. Vogler, 407 F. 2d 1047, 1052 (5 Cir.1969). Justice Douglas, in the DeFunis case, discussed the propriety of using racial criteria as a corrective measure to offset biases in the selection procedures. Supra, 416 U.S. at 340, 342, 94 S.Ct. at 1718, 40 L.Ed. 2d at 182-183. In disapproving the University of Washington's application procedures favoring minority applicants, he noted that there was no evidence that minority applications had been deliberately blocked or discouraged in the past. Similarly, he said: There was also no showing that the purpose of the school's policy was to eliminate arbitrary and irrelevant barriers to entry by certain racial groups into the legal profession. [416 U.S. at 336 n. 18, 94 S.Ct. at 1715, 40 L.Ed. 2d at 180 n. 18] Relying on the finding of past discrimination in this case, the Division on Civil Rights and amicus E.E.O.C. urge us to apply the rational basis test in reviewing the remedial scheme. This standard of review merely requires that the classification adopted by the State bear a reasonable relationship to a legitimate governmental interest. Massachusetts Bd. of Retirement v. Murgia, 427 U.S. 307, 96 S.Ct. 2562, 49 L.Ed. 2d 520 (1976); Dandridge v. Williams, 397 U.S. 471, 90 S.Ct. 1153, 25 L.Ed. 2d 491 (1970), reh. den., 398 U.S. 914, 90 S.Ct. 1684, 26 L.Ed. 2d 80 (1970); Lindsley v. Natural Carbonic Gas Co., 220 U.S. 61, 31 S.Ct. 337, 55 L.Ed. 369 (1911). See McGowan v. Maryland, 366 U.S. 420, 81 S.Ct. 1101, 6 L.Ed. 2d 393 (1966). Although I do not find these classifications to be suspect in the traditional sense, I cannot agree that racial quotas or any other comparable form of relief, should escape rigorous judicial review. However, benign the purpose behind reverse discrimination, such color conscious relief raises fundamental constitutional issues. Yet, adoption of the strict scrutiny standard suggests that racial quotas are equivalent to invidious discrimination. It also implies that they work such destructive results that they are justifiable only if the state can demonstrate a compelling need. Consequently, it cripples any efforts for significant change: It would indeed be ironic and, of course, would cut against the very grain of the amendment, were the equal protection clause used to strike down measures used to achieve real equality for persons whom it was intended to aid. [ Alevy v. Downstate Medical Center, 39 N.Y. 2d 326, 384 N.Y.S. 2d 82, 348 N.E. 2d 537 (1976)]. The proper test  and one which has been applied by most federal courts  is a modified version of the strict scrutiny standard which examines the risk that the terms of the quota will undermine the task of undoing past discrimination. As such, it bears some resemblance to the strengthened rational relation test which some judges and commentators have discerned in United States Supreme Court decisions striking down statutes on equal protection grounds where neither a suspect classification nor a fundamental interest was implicated. See Dandridge v. Williams, 397 U.S. 471, 520-521, 90 S.Ct. 1153, 1180, 25 L.Ed. 2d 491, 522-523 (1969) (Marshall, J., dissenting); Chicago Police Dept. v. Mosley, 408 U.S. 92, 92 S.Ct. 2286, 33 L.Ed. 2d 212 (1972); Reed v. Reed, 404 U.S. 71, 92 S.Ct. 251, 30 L.Ed. 2d 225 (1971); cf. Wurtzel v. Falcey, 69 N.J. 401, 408, n. 4 (1976) (Pashman, J., dissenting). This departure from strict scrutiny has been premised on several grounds. First, the racial classifications in question have not been adopted as a means of denying opportunities to any racial or ethnic group, as prior practices did. [20] They have been devised to counteract the exclusive effects of past discrimination by increasing the number of minority employees. Second, unlike the wrong emphasized in Brown v. Board of Education , they have not stigmatized any excluded group as inferior. Rather they have recognized the needs of minority persons who have been victimized by persistent forms of racism. Third, these preferences are generally employed to ameliorate the treatment accorded blacks  a purpose in keeping with the original goal of the fourteenth amendment. See Slaughter-House Cases, 83 U.S. (16 Wall.) 36, 81, 21 L.Ed. 394 (1873); Bickel, The Original Understanding and the Segregation Decision, 69 Harv. L. Rev. 1, 60 (1955). Although the fourteenth amendment is not confined to unequal treatment of blacks, the original purpose of the amendment should not be disregarded merely because its suspect categories have been expanded to include other minorities in analogous positions, Yick Wo v. Hopkins, 118 U.S. 356, 6 S.Ct. 1064, 30 L.Ed. 220 (1885); Oyama v. California, 332 U.S. 633, 68 S.Ct. 269, 92 L.Ed. 249 (1948); Hernandez v. Texas, 347 U.S. 475, 74 S.Ct. 667, 98 L.Ed. 866 (1954); Graham v. Richardson, 403 U.S. 365, 91 S.Ct. 1848, 29 L.Ed. 2d 534 (1971). Moreover, these measures do not prejudice an identifiable group which is a discrete and insular minority disadvantaged by the majoritarian political process. See Justice Stone's footnote 4 in United States v. Carolene Products Co., 304 U.S. 144, 58 S.Ct. 778, 82 L.Ed. 1234 (1937); Ely, The Constitutionality of Reverse Discrimination, 41 U. Chi. L. Rev. 723 (1974). However, even if a racial classification is not suspect in the strict constitutional sense when it is intended to benefit minority group members who have traditionally been subjected to invidious forms of discrimination, a preferential scheme which incorporates racial criteria must be carefully assessed to determine whether its features are reasonably designed to achieve a substantial governmental interest. Although decisions of administrative agencies should ordinarily be left undisturbed when they reflect special expertise and are supported by substantial evidence in the record, this more rigorous form of review should ensure that the same objective cannot be served by less onerous alternatives. In particular, such an inquiry should focus on the duration of the scheme and its impact on non-favored groups. Here, as I have indicated, the Director's order does serve an important public purpose of vindicating the rights of persons who have been injured by practices which are prohibited by the Law Against Discrimination. The State clearly has an overriding interest in giving full effect to this act by ensuring that aggrieved persons are not left without a remedy. It also has a stake in seeking reasonably expeditious change in the character of a public entity which has excluded minority persons by discriminatory means. At the same time, its remedial efforts must be attuned to the nature of the discriminatory conduct and the response of the wrongdoer. Where an employer has intentionally engaged in discriminatory practices, there is good reason to impose stringent conditions in order to avoid a recurrence of similar behavior. See, e.g., Morrow v. Crisler, supra ; United States v. Wood, Wire and Metal Lath. Int. Union, Local 46, supra; Western Addition Community Organization v. Alioto, supra . Likewise, such measures are justified where an employer has refused to institute, or has not yet developed, a set of nondiscriminatory procedures acceptable to administrative authorities or to a court. See, e.g., N.A.A.C.P. v. Allen, supra ; Boston Chapter, N.A.A.C.P. v. Beecher, supra ; Vulcan Society of N.Y.C. Fire Department v. Civil Service, Com'n, supra. In the present case, however, Montclair has cooperated with the Division on Civil Rights in devising its procedures for hiring and promotion to avoid the discriminatory consequences of its former tests and interviewing methods. It has also shown a willingness to hire minority group members. To some extent, it appears that the current racial make-up of the police and fire departments reflects a low rate of turnover. Therefore, I cannot conclude that it is necessary to extend this preferential hiring scheme to black applicants who have not been injured by past discrimination in order to uphold the purposes of the act. As I have noted earlier, I would revise the Director's order to limit favored treatment to the class of black applicants who were denied eligibility for appointment on the basis of Montclair's unrevised procedures. I emphasize once again that this limitation on the scope of relief is not required in every case. Different circumstances might well justify a remedial quota which encompasses persons who themselves have not been directly injured by discriminatory practices. See ante at 49. (Pashman, J., dissenting). However, I do find that anything less than the relief which I have outlined would have the unwarranted effect of leaving victims of past injustice wholly uncompensated. Finally, I do not consider the duration of this order unduly long. Although Montclair will be subject to its provisions for approximately five years, the relatively few number of positions affected by the order makes this a reasonable period of time. Similarly, the impact of the preference on on other applicants, though not insignificant, is outweighed by the necessity of redressing the wrongs against black applicants. Accordingly, I would modify paragraph 6 of the final order to give preferential treatment only to those minority candidates who were re-evaluated according to the provisions of paragraphs 4 and 5, in order to limit preferential relief to those who were injured by the discriminatory testing procedures. I would leave paragraph 11 intact.