Opinion ID: 2470930
Heading Depth: 4
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Strong Basis in Evidence of Necessity

Text: Even after an employer has shown a strong basis in evidence that it faces disparate-impact liability, the employer does not have carte blanche to take whatever race- or gender-conscious actions it pleases. Rather, the employer must have a strong basis in evidence to believe it will be subject to disparate-impact liability if it fails to take the race-conscious [or gender-conscious], discriminatory action.  Id. at 2677 (emphasis added). That is to say, there must be a strong basis in evidence that the race- or gender-conscious action taken by the employer is necessary to avoid disparate-impact liability. This necessity issue was not squarely presented in Ricci, for two reasons. First, there was no strong basis in evidence that New Haven would have faced disparate-impact liability, so it was unnecessary to determine what New Haven was permitted to do to remedy the disparate impact. Second, if New Haven had had a strong basis in evidence of disparate-impact liability, then there would have been little question that refusal to certify the test results was precisely what was necessary to avoid liability. There was, therefore, no need in Ricci to undertake the difficult process of determining who might have been a victim of discrimination and what sort of relief might have been required to make such individuals whole. Cf. Teamsters, 431 U.S. at 371-72, 97 S.Ct. 1843. It seems easier to say what would be necessary to avoid a disparate-impact violation that is about to occur but has not yet happened, than it is to say what is necessary to remedy such a violation years after it took place. We think it makes good sense to require that an employer's strong basis in evidence extend beyond the existence of disparate-impact liability, to the necessity of the employer's chosen race- or sex-conscious remedy for that disparate impact. As with the requirement of a strong basis in evidence of liability, a strong basis in evidence of necessity gives effect to both the disparate-treatment and disparate-impact provisions, allowing violations of one in the name of compliance with the other only in certain, narrow circumstances. Ricci, 129 S.Ct. at 2676. In doing so, requiring a strong basis in evidence of necessity avoids extreme positions that would undermine the careful Ricci balancing of disparate treatment and disparate impact under Title VII. If a showing of actual necessity i.e., a showing that the race- or sex-conscious action's beneficiaries were actual victims who received make-whole relief were mandated, employers would likely refuse to settle disparate-impact cases for fear of disparate-treatment liability. See Part V.B, infra; Ricci, 129 S.Ct. at 2674. But if anything less than a strong basis in evidence of necessity were requiredfor example, if an employer's good-faith belief that its actions were necessary to comply with Title VII's disparate-impact provision were enough to justify race-conscious conduct, then employers might give out race-conscious benefits even where there is little if any evidence of disparate-impact discrimination against the recipients of those benefits. See id. at 2674-75. We therefore hold that the strong-basis-in-evidence standard of Ricci applies not only to the question of disparate-impact liability, but also to the further question of whether the employer's race- or gender-conscious action is necessary to remedy that disparate impact. Here too, the employer's belief that its action is necessary to remedy disparate impact, i.e., that the beneficiaries of the action were victims of disparate impact and the action puts them roughly where they would have been in the absence of discrimination, must be objectively reasonable in the above defined sense.