Opinion ID: 2470930
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: The Government's Actual Violation Standard

Text: The Government and the Brennan Plaintiffs ask us to go beyond the explicit requirements of Ricci and holdeither in all cases or, alternatively, in those cases where an employer's race- or gender-conscious action may implicate contractual seniority rightsthat the employer can be liable even if its actions are supported by a strong basis in evidence that the actions are necessary to avoid or remedy a disparate-impact violation. According to them, a § 703(a) reverse-discrimination plaintiff can win by showing (a) that the employer's employment practices were not actually job-related and that there was not actually a less discriminatory alternative, or (b) that some or all recipients of race- or gender-conscious relief were not actual victims who received no more than make-whole relief. If the plaintiffs make this showing, they say, then the employer is liable to them for reverse discrimination. We disagree. The positions advocated by the Government and the Brennan Plaintiffs are irreconcilable with Ricci and rest on a confusion about the procedural posture of this case. Additionally, these parties' focus on contractual seniority rights is inappropriate because the remedy for an employer's unilateral and non-court-sanctioned breach of a collective bargaining agreement is to be sought (and obtained) by the union through the labor grievance and arbitration process, and not by means of a § 703(a) action brought by individual union members in federal court. As a result, the Ricci strong-basis-in-evidence standard is not altered in cases where the plaintiffs allege a breach of contract.
The first, and most significant, problem with the arguments of the Government and the Brennan Plaintiffs is that they ask us to do something that Ricci explicitly tells us not to do: Petitioners ... suggest that an employer must be in violation of the disparate-impact provision before it can use compliance as a defense in a disparate-treatment suit.... [T]his is overly simplistic and too restrictive of Title VII's purpose. The rule petitioners offer would run counter to what we have recognized as Congress's intent that voluntary compliance be the preferred means of achieving the objectives of Title VII. Forbidding employers to act unless they know, with certainty, that a practice violates the disparate-impact provision would bring compliance efforts to a near standstill. Even in the limited situations when this restricted standard could be met, employers likely would hesitate before taking voluntary action for fear of later being proven wrong in the course of litigation and then held to account for disparate treatment. Id. at 2674 (quoting Local No. 93, 478 U.S. at 515, 106 S.Ct. 3063) (citations omitted). The Brennan Plaintiffs are asking us to give them the opportunity to prove, in the course of litigation, that the City Defendants were wrong when they deemed some Offerees likely victims of disparate-impact discrimination, and to hold the City Defendants liable for disparate treatment if any such error was made. But that is just what the Supreme Court has forbidden. The Brennan Plaintiffs are entitled to put those supporting the City Defendants to their proof that the City Defendants had a strong basis in evidence that the challenged testing and recruiting practices were not job-related or that there was a less discriminatory alternative to those practices, and that the City Defendants' actions were necessary to avoid the resulting disparate-impact liability as to particular Offereesbut that is all. [51] True, the Brennan Plaintiffs and the Government would put the burden of proof on the reverse-discrimination plaintiffs, and not on the employer, to show the absence of an actual Title VII violation against actual victims. But that shift of the burden of proof does nothing to avoid the dangers on which Ricci focused. Employers, acting from an ex ante perspective, would still view themselves as [f]orbidd[en]... to act unless they know, with certainty, that a practice violates the disparate-impact provision. Id. In order for the strong-basis-in-evidence standard to work the way the Supreme Court seems to have intended it, an employer who does have a strong basis in evidence that a race- or gender-conscious action is necessary to avoid or remedy a disparate-impact violation must be able to rely on its strong basis in evidence when a reverse-discrimination challenge occurs. Otherwise, employers likely would hesitate before taking voluntary action for fear of later being proven wrong in the course of litigation and then held to account for disparate treatment. Id. If employers who had the required strong basis in evidence that specific Offerees were past victims of disparate impact could be found liable anyway when the plaintiff shows that there was no actual disparate-impact violation or that the race- or gender-conscious action benefited people who were not actual victims (or benefited actual victims beyond the extent of their victimhood), it would be of little comfort to the employer that the burden of proof rested with the other side. The Brennan Plaintiffs and the Government also assert, in the alternative, that their actual violation approach applies only in those cases where the employer's voluntary action allegedly violates the contractual rights of those employees who are not the beneficiaries of the race- or gender-conscious action. But there is no basis for limiting Ricci in this way. Indeed, the Ricci Court stated, we adopt the strong-basis-in-evidence standard as a matter of statutory construction to resolve any conflict between the disparate-treatment and disparate-impact provisions of Title VII. Id. at 2676 (emphasis added). Ricci applies the strong-basis-in-evidence standard to all such conflicts, regardless of whether they involve contractual rights. Significantly, there were contractual rights in Ricci, and the Court never suggested that these would give rise to an exception to its careful balancing of disparate treatment and disparate impact. See id. at 2665 (describing the New Haven firefighters' CBA and its requirements concerning the promotional examinations, including a specific percentage weighting of the written and oral examinations); id. at 2679 (reviewing the job-relatedness of the percentage weighting under the strong-basis-in-evidence standard, not an actual job-relatedness standard).