Opinion ID: 838950
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: the contours of intermediate scrutiny

Text: The dissent accuses me of engaging in rational basis review. Post at 256. I, in turn, conclude that the dissent's formulation of intermediate scrutiny amounts to strict scrutiny and would invalidate most, if not all, conceivable gender-based classifications. Overall, absent further guidance from the United States Supreme Court concerning implementation of the intermediate scrutiny standard, I would not invalidate our Legislature's recent choice to retain dower as a remedy for past economic discrimination and aid some number of impoverished widows while preventing them from becoming public charges. Although dower appears to reflect stereotypes, it is also rooted in documented differences in circumstances between the sexes. The heightened review standard ... does not make sex a proscribed classification. VMI, 518 U.S. at 533, 116 S.Ct. 2264. The law may recognize our differences as long as it does not do so to denigrat[e] ... the members of either sex or to create artificial constraints on an individual's opportunity. Id. Moreover, remedying past discrimination against women is explicitly recognized as an important governmental objective. Id.; Webster, 430 U.S. at 317, 97 S.Ct. 1192. Thus, evidence of real-world disparities between men and women or discrimination on which a challenged statute is premised is both relevant and necessary to intermediate scrutiny. Yet, as my debate with the dissent illustrates, courts are at a loss about how to employ such evidence in practice. As noted, the Craig Court itself engaged in a debate about the appropriateness and workability of intermediate scrutiny. Tellingly, in his dissent, Justice Rehnquist remarked that use of the substantial relation test requires courts to make subjective judgments as to operational effects, for which neither their expertise nor their access to data fits them. Craig, 429 U.S. at 221, 97 S.Ct. 451. Courts commonly use statistics when applying the intermediate scrutiny standard. [24] But the divisive question remains: How much and what kind of empirical support is sufficient to justify the classification? The United States Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit attempted to answer this question in Contractors Ass'n of Eastern Pennsylvania, Inc. v. Philadelphia, 6 F.3d 990 (C.A.3, 1993), a so-called affirmative action case involving a city contracting program that gave preferential treatment to enterprises owned by racial and ethnic minorities, women, and handicapped persons. With regard to the preference in favor of women, the court observed: Few cases have considered the evidentiary burden needed to satisfy intermediate scrutiny in this context.... In particular, it is unclear whether statistical evidence as well as anecdotal evidence is required to establish the discrimination necessary to satisfy intermediate scrutiny, and if so, how much statistical evidence is necessary. The Supreme Court gender-preference cases are inconclusive. The Court has never squarely ruled on the necessity of statistical evidence of gender discrimination. And its decisions are difficult to reconcile on the point. The Court has upheld gender preferences where no statistics were offered, Schlesinger ..., 419 U.S. 498, 508-09, 95 S.Ct. 572 ... (preferential employment treatment for women military officers), struck down gender preferences despite the presence of statistics, Craig ..., 429 U.S. 190, 203-204, 97 S.Ct. 451 ... (statute allowing 18 year old women but only 21 year old men to purchase 3.2% beer), Weinberger ..., 420 U.S. 636, 95 S.Ct. 1225 ... (statute allowing survivors' benefits for widows but not widowers), and also decided cases both ways by relying in part on statistics, Hogan, 458 U.S. at 728, 102 S.Ct. 3331 ... (striking down female-only nursing school), ... Webster, 430 U.S. 313, 318 & n. 5, 97 S.Ct. 1192 ... (upholding federal statute allowing women to eliminate more low-earning years from calculation of their retirement benefits than men). [ Id. at 1010.] The Third Circuit ultimately concluded that the city was required to present probative evidence in support of its stated rationale for the gender preference, relying on the Supreme Court's statement that an affirmative action program survives intermediate scrutiny if the proponent can show it was `a product of analysis rather than a stereotyped reaction based on habit.' Id., citing Metro Broadcasting, Inc. v. FCC, 497 U.S. 547, 582-583, 110 S.Ct. 2997, 111 L.Ed.2d 445 (1990). [25] The Eleventh Circuit helpfully refined the Third Circuit's test in Engineering Contractors Ass'n of South Florida, Inc. v. Metropolitan Dade Co., 122 F.3d 895 (C.A.11, 1997). There, addressing a similar law aimed at remedying discrimination against women, the court opined: Although it is clear that both gender-conscious and race-or ethnicity-conscious programs must be tested for evidentiary sufficiency, the measure of the evidence required is less clear in the gender context. The Supreme Court has not addressed the question explicitly, and there is a similar dearth of guidance in the reported decisions of other federal appellate courts.... The Supreme Court has told us plainly that race-and ethnicity-conscious programs must be tested for a strong basis in evidence, and a body of appellate jurisprudence has developed to provide that label with meaningful content. See, e.g., [ City of Richmond v. J.A. Croson Co., 488 U.S. 469, 499-504, 109 S.Ct. 706, 102 L.Ed.2d 854 (1989)] (identifying factors that cannot form a strong basis in evidence); [ Ensley Branch, NAACP v. Seibels, 31 F.3d 1548, 1565 (C.A.11, 1994)] (citing and applying Croson ). In the gender context, however, we must work without an analogous evidentiary label from the Supreme Court, and the jurisprudence is less developed. Regardless of what label might be affixed to the standard, it is clear to us that a gender-conscious affirmative action program can rest safely on something less than the strong basis in evidence required to bear the weight of a race-or ethnicity-conscious program. We agree with the Third Circuit that [l]ogically, a [local government] must be able to rely on less evidence in enacting a gender preference than a racial preference because applying Croson 's evidentiary standard to a gender preference would eviscerate the difference between strict and intermediate scrutiny. Contractors Ass'n, 6 F.3d at 1010; see also Peter Lurie, Comment, The Law as They Found It: Disentangling Gender-Based Affirmative Action Programs from Croson, 59 U. Chi. L.Rev. 1563, 1584-89 (1992) (concluding that [t]he factual predicate required cannot be equal to that needed to support a racial classification because [a]ppending a Croson -style factual predicate to the standard disingenuously transforms intermediate scrutiny into strict scrutiny). While there is a difference between the evidentiary foundation necessary to support a race-or ethnicity-conscious affirmative action program and the evidentiary foundation necessary to support a gender preference, that difference is one of degree, not of kind. In both circumstances, the test of the program is the adequacy of evidence of discrimination, but in the gender context less evidence is required. The difficulty, of course, is in determining how much less. [ Id. at 909.] The Eleventh Circuit proceeded to examine the probative evidence standard enunciated by the Third Circuit in Contractors Ass'n. The Court approved of the standard as applied, explaining: Plainly, the evidence offered by the government in Contractors Association was probative as that word is commonly understood, because it tended, at least to some extent, to prove discrimination against women.... The probative evidence in Contractors Association was nonetheless judged insufficient. We think that the court's holding in Contractor's Association is more helpful than the probative evidence standard the opinion articulates. Under the Third Circuit's holding, evidence offered in support of a gender preference must not only be probative, it must also be sufficient. [ Id. at 909-910.] In attempting to circumscribe this sufficient probative evidence standard, the court analogized and contrasted the stricter strong basis in evidence standard applicable to race-based classifications. It focused on two principal guidelines that mark the boundaries of intermediate scrutiny evidentiary analysis. Id. at 910. First, [u]nder the intermediate scrutiny test, a local government must demonstrate some past discrimination against women, but not necessarily discrimination by the government itself. Ensley Branch, 31 F.3d at 1580. Indeed, [o]ne of the distinguishing features of intermediate scrutiny is that, unlike strict scrutiny, the government interest prong of the inquiry can be satisfied by a showing of societal discrimination in the relevant economic sector. Id. (citations omitted). Thus, to be sufficient the evidence need not be about governmental discrimination. Second, the intermediate scrutiny evidentiary review is not to be directed toward mandating that gender-conscious affirmative action is used only as a last resort, Hayes v. North State Law Enforcement Officers Ass'n, 10 F.3d 207, 217 (4th Cir.1993) (racial discrimination case), but instead to ensuring that the affirmative action program is a product of analysis rather than a stereotyped reaction based on habit, Contractors Ass'n, 6 F.3d at 1010 (quoting Metro Broadcasting, [497 U.S. at 582-583, 110 S.Ct. 2997]). Nevertheless, any `analysis' that rests upon unsupported factual premises cannot possibly be `reasoned,' and an untrue and widely-held generalization about men or women is by definition a `stereotype.' Lamprecht v. FCC, 958 F.2d 382, 393 n. 3 (D.C.Cir.1992) (Thomas, Circuit Justice). That is why the intermediate scrutiny evidentiary inquiry turns on whether there is evidence of past discrimination in the economic sphere at which the affirmative action program is directed. Ensley Branch, 31 F.3d at 1581. Unsupported generalizations will not suffice. [ Id. ] The Eleventh Circuit concluded: Under those guidelines, the government must satisfy an `intermediate' standard  less stringent than the `strong basis in evidence' standard associated with strict scrutiny, yet more demanding than merely any probative evidence. Id. [26] As applied here, Sharon Miltenberger presented data showing both wage disparities between the sexes and the relative poverty of men and women over 65. She addressed both the national and local economic spheres, as well as wage disparities among the married population capable of becoming surviving spouses. With regard to the closeness of fit between dower's means and its capability of remedying these disparities, I conclude that she also showed that dower is a product of analysis rather than a stereotyped reaction based on habit. Metro Broadcasting, 497 U.S. at 582-583, 110 S.Ct. 2997. As the Eleventh Circuit acknowledged, the meaning of sufficient, even in reference to this standard, may elude precise formulation.... Engineering Contractors Ass'n, 122 F.3d at 910. But Hogan provided crucial guidance on this point by explaining the purpose of the substantial relation test: The purpose of requiring that close relationship is to assure that the validity of a classification is determined through reasoned analysis rather than through the mechanical application of traditional, often inaccurate, assumptions about the proper roles of men and women. Hogan, 458 U.S. at 725-726, 102 S.Ct. 3331. [27] Thus  in keeping with the Craig Court's concerns about the dubious[ness] of proving broad sociological proposition by statistics, Craig, 429 U.S. at 204, 97 S.Ct. 451 (Brennan, J.), and the unworkability of a test that requires courts to make subjective judgments as to operational effects, for which neither their expertise nor their access to data fits them, id. at 221, 97 S.Ct. 451 (Rehnquist, J., dissenting)  Hogan suggests that the sufficiency or fit of the data is judged not by whether a law's proponent can meet some numerical threshold, but by whether the data reflect permissible goals rooted in true differences. If, as here, the data reflect true differences and the law provides some degree of remedy for the resulting disparities, the law's proponent has shown that the law is constitutional because it is not based on mere reflexive assumptions that denigrate the sexes. Put otherwise, the law is constitutional because it does not rely on unsupported factual premises, and, since strict scrutiny does not apply, the law need not be justified as a last resort or have a  strong basis in evidence. See Engineering Contractors Ass'n, 122 F.3d at 910 (emphasis added). These conclusions are practically required if we are to distinguish strict scrutiny from intermediate scrutiny while honoring the current, somewhat conflicting body of equal protection jurisprudence. Finally, the dissent relies heavily on the United States Supreme Court's reluctance to uphold gender classifications in the realm of marital law. Post at 243-44, 257. I offer two responses. First, as previously discussed, the cases cited by the dissent are generally distinguishable, because they involve public schemes that directly denigrate women's earnings or because the laws involved were amenable to gender-neutral alternatives, or both. Second, I cede the dissent's point to a large degree, but with a caveat. The dissent's assertion that I equate[ ] strict scrutiny with the intermediate scrutiny that [Justice Cavanagh] employ[s] in this case, post at 257, illustrates my point that the Supreme Court's intermediate scrutiny jurisprudence is inconsistent and difficult to apply. Justice Cavanagh's analysis resembles strict scrutiny in part because the Supreme Court's analyses resemble strict scrutiny, particularly in the post- Kahn marital arena. In Engineering Contractors Ass'n, the Eleventh Circuit addressed this very issue as a problem existing across the board in intermediate scrutiny cases. The court began by noting the Supreme Court's use throughout its VMI opinion  which invalidated maintenance of a single-sex education program at the Virginia Military Institute  of the phrase exceedingly persuasive justification to describe the substantial relation test. Engineering Contractors Ass'n, 122 F.3d at 907. The Eleventh Circuit opined that the phrase connotes more intense scrutiny than do customary descriptions of intermediate scrutiny, citing Justice Scalia's dissent in VMI. Id. Indeed, in VMI, Justice Scalia accused the high court of effectively adopting the strict scrutiny test for gender classifications. VMI, 518 U.S. at 571, 116 S.Ct. 2264 (Scalia, J., dissenting). Yet the VMI majority disclaimed doing so, id. at 532, 116 S.Ct. 2264 and, in concurring in the result, Chief Justice Rehnquist explicitly counseled: While terms like important governmental objective and substantially related are hardly models of precision, they have more content and specificity than does the phrase exceedingly persuasive justification. That phrase is best confined, as it was first used, as an observation on the difficulty of meeting the applicable test, not as a formulation of the test itself. [ Id. at 559, 116 S.Ct. 2264 (Rehnquist, C.J., concurring in result).] Accordingly, the Eleventh Circuit declined to apply a new, stricter standard in cases addressing gender-based classifications, stating: Unless and until the Supreme Court tells us otherwise, intermediate scrutiny remains the applicable constitutional standard in gender discrimination cases, and a gender preference may be upheld so long as it is substantially related to an important governmental objective. Engineering Contractors Ass'n, 122 F.3d at 908. I similarly conclude that, although [i]t is unfortunate that the Court [has] introduce[d] an element of uncertainty respecting the appropriate test in cases involving gender-based classifications, VMI, 518 U.S. at 559, 116 S.Ct. 2264 (Rehnquist, C.J., concurring in result), the Supreme Court's formally enunciated test remains: Is the classification substantially related to an important governmental objective? Unless and until the Court says otherwise, I believe that we are bound to uphold our Legislature's choice to retain dower, because it passes the substantial relation test and also may reasonably be distinguished from the cases involving marital laws cited by the dissent.