Opinion ID: 676060
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: the consent decree modification issues

Text: 79 The Supreme Court has articulated a two-pronged approach to determining when, and to what extent, an institutional-reform consent decree that arguably relates to the vindication of a constitutional right should be modified. Rufo v. Inmates of Suffolk County Jail, --- U.S. ----, ---- n. 7, 112 S.Ct. 748, 760 n. 7, 116 L.Ed.2d 867 (1992). The first prong requires the party seeking modification to establish that a significant change in facts or law warrants revision of the decree. Id. at ----, 112 S.Ct. at 765. If the moving party satisfies this requirement, then the second prong requires the court to make modifications that are suitably tailored to address the new factual or legal environment. Id. We now elaborate on this dual inquiry. 80
81 Rufo normally permits modification of a consent decree only to accommodate new factual or legal circumstances. The sorts of factual changes that may qualify include unanticipated developments that render continuation of the decree inequitable, Jacksonville Branch, NAACP v. Duval County Sch. Bd., 978 F.2d 1574, 1582 (11th Cir.1992), or that, for reasons unrelated to past discrimination or to the fault of the parties, make it extremely difficult or impossible to satisfy obligations that, while imposed by the decree, are not part of its fundamental purpose, United States v. City of Miami, 2 F.3d 1497, 1509 (11th Cir.1993). However, a district court should not modify long-standing goals in consent decrees merely because the goals have not been achieved. Id. at 1509. 82 Rufo similarly provides for flexibility in the face of changing legal standards, but does not mandate modifications in response to every legal development. For example, a court need not necessarily rewrite a consent decree so that it conforms to the constitutional floor just because that floor drops after entry of the decree. Rufo, --- U.S. at ----, 112 S.Ct. at 764. On the other hand, a rising constitutional floor--or, as in this case, a falling constitutional ceiling--may make modifications necessary. Above all, [a] consent decree must ... be modified if ... one or more of the obligations placed upon the parties has become impermissible under federal law, id. at ----, 112 S.Ct. at 762, and that is the aspect of Rufo with which we grapple in the present case. 83
84 Once a court has determined that some modification is warranted because of a significant change in law or fact, the second prong of the Rufo analysis comes into play. This prong requires the court to determine the appropriate scope of the changes, accepting only proposals that are suitably tailored to address significant factual developments or conflicts between new legal standards and the requirements of the decree. Rufo, --- U.S. at ----, 112 S.Ct. at 765. This determination requires a flexible exercise of that court's equitable power, City of Miami, 2 F.3d at 1509, but the district court's discretion is not unlimited. The court may not modify a decree in a way that would violate the basic purpose of the decree, and must under no circumstances create or perpetuate a constitutional violation. Rufo, --- U.S. at ---- - ----, 112 S.Ct. at 762-63. 85 We now turn to the question of whether the district court properly exercised its equitable discretion when it rejected some of the appellants' proposed modifications. This inquiry will require us to decide whether the court modified the consent decrees' race- and gender-based remedies sufficiently to make them permissible under current constitutional standards. Because racial and gender classifications attract different levels of scrutiny under the Equal Protection Clause, we analyze separately the decrees' race- and gender-conscious provisions. 86
PROVISIONS IN THIS CASE 87
88 The district court approved the City and Board decrees in 1981, thirteen years ago. The Supreme Court had, at that time, just begun to address the constitutionality of affirmative action. See Fullilove v. Klutznick, 448 U.S. 448, 100 S.Ct. 2758, 65 L.Ed.2d 902 (1980); Regents of Univ. of Cal. v. Bakke, 438 U.S. 265, 98 S.Ct. 2733, 57 L.Ed.2d 750 (1978); Califano v. Webster, 430 U.S. 313, 97 S.Ct. 1192, 51 L.Ed.2d 360 (1977). Since then, the Court has repeatedly revisited this issue, substantially changing affirmative action jurisprudence. Most significantly, City of Richmond v. J.A. Croson Co., 488 U.S. 469, 498-508, 109 S.Ct. 706, 724-30, 102 L.Ed.2d 854 (1989), established that voluntary, race-conscious, local-government affirmative action programs are subject to strict scrutiny. Prior to Croson, a majority of the Supreme Court had never joined in one opinion on the constitutionality of such programs. Peightal v. Metropolitan Dade County, 940 F.2d 1394, 1398-99 (11th Cir.1991) (footnote omitted), cert. denied, --- U.S. ----, 112 S.Ct. 969, 117 L.Ed.2d 134 (1992). Croson sufficiently altered the legal landscape to warrant modifications to the present decrees under Rufo. As we discuss later in this opinion, Croson has rendered parts of the decrees unconstitutional. 89
90 Rufo's second prong requires that consent decrees be modified to avoid any violations of governing constitutional standards. The relevant constitutional standard in this case is Croson's strict scrutiny test. While it is true that Croson applies only to voluntary affirmative action programs, see Croson, 488 U.S. at 491-93, 109 S.Ct. at 720-21, we have previously held that, because of their peculiar procedural history, the present decrees should be treated as a voluntary affirmative action plan for purposes of equal protection analysis. In re Birmingham Reverse Discrimination Employment Litig., 833 F.2d 1492, 1501 n. 23 (11th Cir.1987), aff'd sub nom., Martin v. Wilks, 490 U.S. 755, 109 S.Ct. 2180, 104 L.Ed.2d 835 (1989). 91 Under strict scrutiny, an affirmative action plan must be based upon a compelling governmental interest and must be narrowly tailored to achieve that interest. S.J. Groves & Sons Co. v. Fulton County, 920 F.2d 752, 767 (11th Cir.), cert. denied, 500 U.S. 959, 111 S.Ct. 2274, 114 L.Ed.2d 725, and cert. denied, 501 U.S. 1252, 111 S.Ct. 2893, 115 L.Ed.2d 1057 (1991); see also Croson, 488 U.S. at 498-508, 109 S.Ct. at 724-30. We address separately those two requirements as they apply to this decree. 92
93 Strict scrutiny's compelling government interest requirement was designed to 'smoke out' illegitimate uses of race by assuring that the legislative body is pursuing a goal important enough to warrant use of a highly suspect tool. Croson, 488 U.S. at 493, 109 S.Ct. at 721 (plurality opinion of O'Connor, J.). In practice, the interest that is alleged in support of racial preferences is almost always the same--remedying past or present discrimination. United States v. City of San Francisco, 696 F.Supp. 1287, 1301 (N.D.Cal.1988), aff'd in part and modified in part on other grounds sub nom. Davis v. City of San Francisco, 890 F.2d 1438 (9th Cir.1989), cert. denied, 498 U.S. 897, 111 S.Ct. 248, 112 L.Ed.2d 206 (1990). That interest is widely accepted as compelling. See, e.g., Wygant v. Jackson Bd. of Educ., 476 U.S. 267, 286, 106 S.Ct. 1842, 1853, 90 L.Ed.2d 260 (1986) (O'Connor, J., concurring); Cone Corp. v. Hillsborough County, 908 F.2d 908, 916 (11th Cir.), cert. denied, 498 U.S. 983, 111 S.Ct. 516, 112 L.Ed.2d 528 (1990); Howard v. McLucas, 871 F.2d 1000, 1006-08 (11th Cir.), cert. denied, 493 U.S. 1002, 110 S.Ct. 560, 107 L.Ed.2d 555 (1989). As a result, the true test of an affirmative action program is usually not the nature of the government's interest, but rather the adequacy of the evidence of discrimination offered to show that interest. City of San Francisco, 696 F.Supp. at 1301. Without an adequate showing of discrimination, the government's assertion that affirmative action is necessary lacks credibility. See Croson, 488 U.S. at 505, 109 S.Ct. at 728. 94 Therefore, when a consent decree providing race-conscious relief is challenged as unconstitutional, the district court must make a factual determination that the public employer has  'a strong basis in evidence for its conclusion that'  racial discrimination necessitates affirmative action. Howard, 871 F.2d at 1007 (quoting Wygant, 476 U.S. at 277, 106 S.Ct. at 1849). Certain aspects of this inquiry are well established. A local-government employer cannot rest on an amorphous claim of societal discrimination, Croson, 488 U.S. at 499, 109 S.Ct. at 724, on simple legislative assurances of good intention, id. at 500, 109 S.Ct. at 725, or on congressional findings of discrimination in the national economy, id. at 504, 109 S.Ct. at 727. Public employers may, however, justify affirmative action by demonstrating gross statistical disparities between the proportion of minorities hired by the public employer and the proportion of minorities willing and able to do the work. Id. at 501, 109 S.Ct. at 725 (internal quotation marks omitted); see also Cone Corp., 908 F.2d at 916 (finding a prima facie case of discrimination sufficient to justify race-conscious relief where minorities owned 12% of the contracting businesses but received only 1.2% of the local government's contracting dollars); Howard, 871 F.2d at 1007 (upholding a finding of discrimination based on statistical evidence, including the fact that black employees spent an average of three times longer than white employees in low-grade wage jobs). Anecdotal evidence may also be used to document discrimination, especially if buttressed by relevant statistical evidence. Cone Corp., 908 F.2d at 916. 95 Although Croson requires that a public employer show strong evidence of discrimination when defending an affirmative action plan, the Supreme Court has never required that, before implementing affirmative action, the employer must have already proved that it has discriminated. On the contrary, formal findings of discrimination need neither precede nor accompany the adoption of affirmative action. Wygant, 476 U.S. at 286, 106 S.Ct. at 1853 (O'Connor, J., concurring) (rejecting any formal findings requirement); id. at 305, 106 S.Ct. at 1863 (Marshall, J., dissenting, joined by Brennan and Blackmun, JJ.) (stating that [t]he Court is correct to recognize, as it does at least implicitly today, that formal findings of past discrimination are not a necessary predicate to the adoption of affirmative-action policies); id. at 313, 106 S.Ct. at 1867 (Stevens, J., dissenting) (arguing that a showing of past discrimination is not necessary to finding a compelling interest in racial classifications with purely prospective effect); Howard, 871 F.2d at 1007 (specifically rejecting the intervenor white employees' argument that a showing of past discrimination must precede the implementation of the promotional relief and that this showing may be made only through the employer's own admittance of such discrimination or through a judicial finding of past discrimination); cf. Contractors Ass'n v. City of Philadelphia, 6 F.3d 990, 1004 (3d Cir.1993) (noting that federal courts have admitted evidence that supports affirmative action, even when that evidence was developed after the affirmative action plan); Harrison & Burrowes Bridge Constructors, Inc. v. Cuomo, 981 F.2d 50, 60 (2d Cir.1992) (The law is plain that the constitutional sufficiency of a state's proffered reasons necessitating an affirmative action plan should be assessed on whatever evidence is presented, whether prior to or subsequent to the program's enactment.). This is because, as Justice O'Connor has explained 96 A violation of federal statutory or constitutional requirements does not arise with the making of a finding; it arises when the wrong is committed. Contemporaneous findings serve solely as a means by which it can be made absolutely certain that the governmental actor truly is attempting to remedy its own unlawful conduct when it adopts an affirmative action plan .... Such findings, when voluntarily made by a public employer, obviously are desirable in that they provide evidentiary safeguards .... If contemporaneous findings were required of public employers in every case as a precondition to the constitutional validity of their affirmative action efforts, however, the relative value of these evidentiary advantages would diminish, for they could be secured only by the sacrifice of other vitally important values. 97 The imposition of a requirement that public employers make findings that they have engaged in illegal discrimination before they engage in affirmative action programs would severely undermine public employers' incentive to meet voluntarily their civil rights obligations.... 98 ... [P]ublic employers are trapped between the competing hazards of liability to minorities if affirmative action is not taken to remedy apparent employment discrimination and liability to nonminorities if affirmative action is taken. Where these employers, who are presumably fully aware both of their duty under federal law to respect the rights of all their employees and of their potential liability for failing to do so, act on the basis of information which gives them a sufficient basis for concluding that remedial action is necessary, a contemporaneous findings requirement should not be necessary. 99 Wygant, 476 U.S. at 289-91, 106 S.Ct. at 1855-56 (O'Connor, J., concurring). For these and related reasons, the Supreme Court has required a public employer defending an affirmative action plan to show only that it has a 'strong basis in evidence for its conclusion that remedial action was necessary.'  Croson, 488 U.S. at 500, 109 S.Ct. at 725 (quoting Wygant, 476 U.S. at 277, 106 S.Ct. at 1849 (plurality opinion)). 100 At the time the City and the Board accepted the present consent decrees, they already had a strong basis in evidence for concluding that race-based relief was needed to correct discrimination in the police and fire departments. When it approved the consent decrees, the district court noted that the City and the Board had good reason to believe that they had discriminated in those two departments. United States v. Jefferson County, 28 Fair Empl.Prac.Cas. (BNA) 1834, 1838, 1981 WL 27018 (N.D.Ala.1981), aff'd, 720 F.2d 1511 (11th Cir.1983). The district court evaluated an extensive record that supported this conclusion. Most importantly, the district court stated: 101 This court at the first trial found--and the Fifth Circuit agreed--that blacks applying for jobs as police officers and firefighters were discriminated against by the tests used by the Personnel Board to screen and rank applicants. The evidence presented at the second trial established, at the .01 level of statistical significance, that blacks were adversely affected by the exam used by the Personnel Board to screen and rank applicants for the position of police sergeant. Since governmental employers such as the City of Birmingham have been limited by state law to selecting candidates from among those certified by the Board, one would hardly be surprised to find that the process as a whole has had an adverse effect upon blacks seeking employment as Birmingham police officers, police sergeants, or firefighters--regardless of whether or not there was any actual bias on the part of selecting officials of the City. A natural consequence of discrimination against blacks at entry-level positions in the police and fire departments would be to limit their opportunities for promotion to higher levels in the departments. 102 Id. at 1837-38. The district court concluded that: 103 While the only judicial finding of discrimination thus far entered has been with respect to the effect upon black applicants of the Personnel Board's tests for police officer and firefighter, it can hardly be doubted that there is more than ample reason for the Personnel Board and the City of Birmingham to be concerned that they would be in time held liable for discrimination against blacks at higher level positions in the police and fire departments and for discrimination against women at all levels in those departments. The proposed consent decrees, by way of settlement for such potential liability, provide appropriate corrective measures reasonably commensurate with the nature and extent of the indicated discrimination. 104 Id. at 1838 (emphasis added). As the district court's analysis demonstrates, the City and the Board had strong reason to believe that employment discrimination in the police and fire departments justified race-based relief. The Board's discrimination against blacks seeking entry-level police and firefighter jobs made it almost inevitable that the effects of discrimination had worked their way up to taint City and Board promotional positions, too. This fact gave the City and the Board an adequate basis for implementing affirmative action in those two departments, which are at the core of this litigation. Further findings with respect to those departments are unnecessary. 105 However, the parties apparently have not yet fully litigated, nor has the district court decided, whether there is sufficient evidence of past or present discrimination to justify continued use of race-conscious remedies in the other departments covered by these decrees. 8 In their briefs, some of the parties attempt to demonstrate either the existence of, or lack of, discrimination in city and county employment. The district court declined to consider these issues as part of the modification proceeding. Instead, the court ruled that a showing of discrimination was relevant only to the original validity of the decrees, and that the decrees' original validity could not be challenged in this modification proceeding. The district court apparently considered a showing of discrimination irrelevant to the present proceeding. 106 That ruling was an abuse of the district court's discretion. As we have already discussed, Rufo requires that these decrees comply with Croson, and Croson requires that the City and the Board show a basis for concluding that public employment discrimination against blacks necessitates affirmative action. Croson, 488 U.S. at 500, 109 S.Ct. at 725. A showing of discrimination is relevant to the decree's present validity, which is very much at issue here. We must therefore remand the case to the district court for findings on whether the public employers here have a strong basis in evidence for their conclusion that past or present discrimination in departments other than the police and fire departments warrants race-based relief. 9 107 The City and Board may defend their programs by showing enough evidence of discrimination to create a strong basis for the conclusion that past or present discrimination warrants race-based remedies in departments in addition to the police and fire departments. It is not necessary (but would of course be sufficient) for the City and Board to show that, when they approved the decrees, they already had strong evidence of such discrimination. This case concerns only the prospective validity of the decrees, and prospective validity can be established just as well with new evidence as with old. If the City and Board can now show strong evidence of the need for affirmative action in a department, then future affirmative action in that department is justified. Cf. Contractors Ass'n v. City of Philadelphia, 6 F.3d 990, 1004 (3d Cir.1993) (holding that consideration of evidence developed after adoption of an affirmative action plan is especially appropriate where the relief sought is prospective only); Concrete Works, Inc. v. City of Denver, 823 F.Supp. 821, 837 (D.Colo.1993) ([I]t would make little sense to strike down the [affirmative action plan] solely because the evidence of discrimination before the City Council was insufficient without the post-enactment evidence only to watch the City Council reconvene immediately, incorporate the new evidence into a new ordinance, and arrive at a constitutionally adequate factual predicate.). 108 On remand, the district court should give the City and the Board a chance to make the requisite showing. Without intending to foreclose the issue, we note that in the parallel but narrower reverse-discrimination proceeding, the district court upheld race-based relief in the engineering department, although it never discussed the evidence on which it based its decision as to that department. Bennett v. Arrington, 806 F.Supp. 926, 929 (N.D.Ala.1992). 10 As recently as 1985, when discussing an engineering department promotion, the district court made the following observation about continuing racial prejudice: 109 [T]he chief engineer in his deposition testimony indicated candidly that he considered the race of Mr. Thomas, [the] person ultimately chosen, being black, as a negative feature. And that he would have so considered that as a negative feature, but for the fact that the consent decree required him to look otherwise at the candidate. 110 These indications suggest that the compelling interest prong will likely be satisfied as to at least some of the departments besides the police and fire departments. If, however, the City and Board fail to present strong evidence justifying race-based relief in a department, the district court must forthwith terminate the race-based affirmative action provisions as to that department. 111 Because we have held that Croson's first requirement is satisfied with respect to the police and fire departments, and may on remand be satisfied with respect to the other departments, we proceed to discuss Croson's second requirement. The next section assumes, without deciding, that race-based affirmative action in the other departments is allowable because there has been an adequate showing of evidence of racial discrimination by the City and the Board. 112
113 Croson's second requirement is that the affirmative action provided be narrowly tailored to the discrimination to be remedied. This requirement, like the compelling interest requirement, applies to the present case through the interaction of Rufo and Croson. Rufo commands district courts to modify consent decrees to avoid perpetuat[ing] a constitutional violation. Rufo v. Inmates of Suffolk County Jail, --- U.S. ----, ----, 112 S.Ct. 748, 763, 116 L.Ed.2d 867 (1992). For its part, Croson establishes the controlling constitutional standard that cannot be violated. Taken together, these decisions mandate that the present decrees' affirmative action provisions be narrowly tailored to serve the compelling government interest of ending racial discrimination. City of Richmond v. J.A. Croson Co., 488 U.S. 469, 507, 109 S.Ct. 706, 728 (1989). The district court failed to make the modifications necessary to tailor the decrees narrowly to that interest. 114 A local government wishing to use racial preferences must strike a difficult balance between an admirable ambition to overcome this nation's sorry history of ... private and public discrimination, Croson, 488 U.S. at 499, 109 S.Ct. at 724, and the sometimes contrary goal of making race irrelevant to public decisionmaking. These related constitutional duties are not always harmonious; reconciling them requires public employers to act with extraordinary care. Wygant v. Jackson Bd. of Educ., 476 U.S. 267, 277, 106 S.Ct. 1842, 1848, 90 L.Ed.2d 260 (1986) (plurality opinion). 115 Carefully tailored affirmative action programs can be a legitimate means of reconciling these aims, and  'innocent persons may be called upon to bear some of the burden of the remedy'  for past discrimination. Metro Broadcasting, Inc. v. Federal Communications Comm'n, 497 U.S. 547, 596, 110 S.Ct. 2997, 3025-26, 111 L.Ed.2d 445 (1990) (quoting Wygant, 476 U.S. at 281, 106 S.Ct. at 1850 (opinion of Powell, J.)); accord Peightal v. Metropolitan Dade County, 940 F.2d 1394, 1410 (11th Cir.1991) (opinion of Brown, J.), cert. denied, --- U.S. ----, 112 S.Ct. 969, 117 L.Ed.2d 134 (1992). Croson itself noted that local governments may in some circumstances use affirmative action to eradicate the effects of public discrimination. Croson, 488 U.S. at 491-93, 109 S.Ct. at 720-21; accord Cone Corp. v. Hillsborough County, 908 F.2d 908, 916-17 (11th Cir.), cert. denied, 498 U.S. 983, 111 S.Ct. 516, 112 L.Ed.2d 528 (1990). To ensure that affirmative action programs do not go too far, however, they must be scrutinized strictly. In making this evaluation, we consider: (1) the 'necessity for the relief and the efficacy of alternative remedies' ; (2) the 'flexibility and duration of the relief, including the availability of waiver provisions' ; (3) the 'relationship of numerical goals to the relevant labor market' ; and (4) the 'impact of the relief on the rights of [innocent third parties].'  Howard v. McLucas, 871 F.2d 1000, 1008 (11th Cir.) (quoting United States v. Paradise, 480 U.S. 149, 171, 107 S.Ct. 1053, 1066, 94 L.Ed.2d 203 (1987) (plurality opinion)), cert. denied, 493 U.S. 1002, 110 S.Ct. 560, 107 L.Ed.2d 555 (1989). Special vigilance is required against unyielding racial quotas that rest[ ] upon the completely unrealistic assumption that minorities will choose a particular trade in lockstep proportion to their representation in the local population. Croson, 488 U.S. at 507, 109 S.Ct. at 729 (internal quote marks omitted). 116 Since Croson, this Court has twice rejected an equal protection challenge to government-sponsored racial preferences. In Howard v. McLucas, 871 F.2d at 1006, we applied strict scrutiny to a consent decree provision that reserved a certain number of promotions for blacks. The number of promotions reserved matched the number of promotions that had been lost by blacks due to past discrimination. Id. at 1003. The set aside was thus narrowly tailored to correct the precisely identified effects of past discrimination. 117 In Cone Corp., we upheld a minority business enterprise plan that had been carefully crafted to minimize the burden on innocent third parties. 908 F.2d at 910. Under this program, persons who bid for certain county contracts had to make a good-faith effort to subcontract a stated percentage of the job to minority businesses. Id. at 911. Although the program included a goal of twenty-five percent minority participation, the county would grant a waiver if qualified minority businesses were uninterested, unavailable, or significantly more expensive than non-minority businesses. Id. at 910-11. In the first year of the program's operation, the county had, after investigation, granted good-faith waivers to each of the bidders who had failed to reach the twenty-five percent target for minority participation. Id. at 911. Despite the plan's flexibility, the district court entered summary judgment against the county. This Court reversed, holding that the plan was sufficiently likely to pass constitutional muster to warrant a trial. Id. at 917. 118 The affirmative action provisions at issue in the present case lack both the extreme specificity of the Howard plan and the generous flexibility of the Cone Corp. plan. They are not narrowly tailored. Thus, the district court must re-write the decrees to make them narrowly tailored to the compelling interest they are intended to serve. 119 The decrees contain two sets of affirmative action provisions: long-term goals and annual goals. The long-term goals are intended to reflect the basic purpose of the decree; they are the final destination. As the long-term goals are reached, affirmative action ends. By contrast, the annual appointment goals are the means of getting to the long-term goals; they guide year-to-year personnel decisions. We will discuss the flaws in the long-term goals first, and then turn to the short-term goals. 120
121 As written, the long-term racial goals are fundamentally flawed. The flaw is that they are designed to create parity between the racial composition of the labor pool and the race of the employees in each job position. The Constitution does not guarantee racial parity in public employment; instead, it forbids racial discrimination. A public employment consent decree's race-conscious provisions are valid only to the extent that they promote the compelling government interest, anchored in the Constitution, of ending discrimination. We stressed in United States v. City of Miami, 2 F.3d 1497, 1506 (11th Cir.1993), that the intent of consent decrees like those in this case cannot be to maintain employment quotas. Instead, the proper goals of such a decree are to end discrimination and eliminate the effects of past discrimination. Id.; see also Brunet v. City of Columbus, 1 F.3d 390, 412 (6th Cir.1993) ( 'Title VII does not require employers to equalize the probabilities of hiring of the average members of two groups. Rather, it requires that actual individuals enjoy opportunities for employment free from discriminatory barriers.'  (quoting Brunet v. City of Columbus, 642 F.Supp. 1214, 1228 (S.D.Ohio 1986)). 122 By striving for racial parity rather than an end to racial discrimination, these decrees actually promote racial discrimination in contravention of the Constitution. Some might argue that an end to discrimination requires parity between the racial composition of the labor pool and the racial composition in each job position. The Supreme Court, however, has rejected that contention, because it rests upon the completely unrealistic assumption that minorities will choose a particular profession in lockstep proportion to their representation in the local workforce. Croson, 488 U.S. at 507, 109 S.Ct. at 729 (internal quotation marks omitted). 123 Conceding that the decrees' long-term racial parity goals violate Croson, the district court stated: There can be little doubt that the civilian labor force data would not pass muster under current legal standards as a valid measure of a discrimination-free job force for all city jobs .... Nevertheless, the district court believed that this admittedly inappropriate measure did not need to be altered because other modifications to the decrees would partly reduce[ ] any adverse consequences arising from use of labor force data, and because the long-term goals have proved in practice to be largely hortatory. Courts should not be satisfied with partly reducing the effects of unconstitutional aspects of their decrees. Instead, they must modify decrees to prevent them from operating unconstitutionally in whole or in part. 124 Moreover, the long-term goals play a significant role in the operation of this decree. These goals may not determine the annual level of appointments, but they serve more than a hortative function. As the district court explained, [t]heir primary effect has been to set a[n] expiration date for the annual goals. This role is significant because the Constitution demands that race-conscious affirmative action programs end as soon as their purposes are accomplished. Until the long-term goals are met, these goals maintain race-conscious selection procedures. Thus, it is important to ensure that the long-term goals pass muster under current legal standards as a valid measure of a discrimination-free job force. 125 On remand, the district court must re-write the decrees to reflect that their true long-term purpose is to remedy past and present discrimination, not to achieve work-force parity. The goal of eliminating discrimination may justify some interim use of affirmative action, but affirmative action selection provisions are themselves a form of discrimination that cannot continue forever. An end to racial discrimination demands the development of valid, non-discriminatory selection procedures to replace race-conscious selection procedures. We hesitate to label this essential object long-term, because it should be pursued with a sense of urgency. 126 While strict scrutiny does not require exhaustion of every possible ... alternative, it does require serious, good faith consideration of race-neutral alternatives, either prior to or in conjunction with implementation of an affirmative action plan. Coral Constr. Co. v. King County, 941 F.2d 910, 923 (9th Cir.1991), cert. denied, --- U.S. ----, 112 S.Ct. 875, 116 L.Ed.2d 780 (1992); see also Cone Corp. v. Hillsborough County, 908 F.2d 908, 917 (11th Cir.) (upholding a minority set-aside program that implemented race-neutral alternatives in conjunction with, rather than prior to, racial preferences), cert. denied, 498 U.S. 983, 111 S.Ct. 516, 112 L.Ed.2d 528 (1990). [R]ace-neutral means are to be favored. Peightal v. Metropolitan Dade County, 26 F.3d 1545, 1557 (11th Cir.1994). Unfortunately, race-neutral alternatives have not been pursued diligently enough in this case. 127 True, the City and the Board have engaged in several race-neutral efforts to cure past and present discrimination. In the 1960s, the Board actively encouraged blacks to apply for jobs, and either waived or eliminated certain application fees. The consent decrees themselves required strengthened recruitment of blacks and women, eliminated certain time-in-grade and size requirements that may have hindered the promotion of blacks or women, and mandated education of supervisors in their responsibility to prevent discrimination against blacks and women. No party has alleged on appeal that these obligations have not been met. 128 However, the single most important race-neutral alternative contained in the decrees was the requirement that the Board develop and put in place non-discriminatory selection procedures--a requirement that the Board has not satisfied. The Board was quite properly ordered to implement selection procedures that either had no disparate impact on blacks and women or that, despite having disparate impact, were job related as that term is used in Title VII. Moreover, if the Board chose the second approach, adopting procedures that were job-related despite having some disparate impact, then the Board was required to search for selection procedures that were equally job-related but with less adverse impact. These decree provisions roughly parallel the requirements of Title VII, which mandates that an employer use either a selection procedure with no adverse impact or a job-related selection procedure that has no more adverse impact than other, equally job-related selection procedures. See Albemarle Paper Co. v. Moody, 422 U.S. 405, 425, 95 S.Ct. 2362, 2375, 45 L.Ed.2d 280 (1975). Although the decree ordered the Board to comply with Title VII by developing valid tests, it provided no deadlines or formal review mechanism to ensure that the Board actually did so. That omission turned out to be a serious flaw. 129 The development of valid selection procedures, in conjunction with the other race-neutral measures, would in time have ended race-conscious hiring. By minimizing and ultimately ending the need for racial preferences, implementation of race-neutral selection procedures would have gone far toward making sure that these decrees satisfied constitutional requirements. But little or no progress in this direction has been made. In 1991, the Board administered thirty-five different tests, none of which had been validated. Thirteen years after the consent decrees took effect, the Board is still unable or unwilling to demonstrate the legality of a single exam. 11 For its part, the City has never tried to validate the selection procedures it uses to choose from among qualified candidates; nor does the City decree presently require that it do so. Thirteen years of experience teach that the decrees as written are simply too weak to make the City and the Board develop non-discriminatory selection procedures. The district court should remedy this defect. The provisions requiring valid selection procedures must be given teeth and extended to cover the City, too. 130 Under its present decree, the Board may indefinitely administer racially discriminatory tests and then attempt to cure the resulting injury to blacks with race-conscious affirmative action. Federal courts should not tolerate such institutionalized discrimination. See Billish v. City of Chicago, 989 F.2d 890, 894 (7th Cir.1993) (en banc) ([A] public employer cannot be allowed to justify reverse discrimination by the bootstrap method of an alternating sequence of racial promotions (or hires). That is, the city cannot get points for first using a presumptively biased eligibility list to make a string of white promotions and then turning around and trying to do some rough racial justice by promoting two blacks from the bottom of the list.). Use of racial hiring quotas to mask the effects of discriminatory selection procedures places grievous burdens on blacks as well as whites. Whatever they measure, tests that are not job-related do not predict future job performance, yet they may nevertheless convince some persons that those who score lower are less qualified. As Justice Brennan once explained, even in the pursuit of remedial objectives, an explicit policy of assignment by race may serve to stimulate our society's latent race consciousness, suggesting the utility and propriety of basing decisions on a factor that ideally bears no relationship to an individual's worth or needs. United Jewish Orgs. v. Carey, 430 U.S. 144, 173, 97 S.Ct. 996, 1014, 51 L.Ed.2d 229 (1977) (Brennan, J., concurring in part). Blacks who do not make top marks on the flawed exams, but who nevertheless are appointed through affirmative action, may discover that their colleagues mistakenly consider them less able. Croson, 488 U.S. at 493, 109 S.Ct. at 722 (plurality opinion) (Classifications based on race carry a danger of stigmatic harm. Unless they are strictly reserved for remedial settings, they may in fact promote notions of racial inferiority and lead to a politics of racial hostility.); Hayes v. North State Law Enforcement Ass'n, 10 F.3d 207, 212 (4th Cir.1993) ( 'While the inequities and indignities visited by past discrimination are undeniable, the use of race as a reparational device risks perpetuating the very race-consciousness such a remedy purports to overcome.'  (quoting Maryland Troopers Ass'n v. Evans, 993 F.2d 1072, 1076 (4th Cir.1993))). For these reasons, it is not surprising that the class of black employees argued in the district court that a reasonable timetable for adoption of valid tests should be imposed. The failure of the consent decrees to force the City and the Board to develop race-neutral selection procedures that are fair to blacks and whites has caused both to suffer the effects of discrimination. 131 By permitting the continued use of discriminatory tests, the decrees compound the very evil they were designed to eliminate. The Constitution will not allow such a discriminatory construct. One color of discrimination has been painted over another in an effort to mask the peeling remnants of prejudice past, leaving a new and equally offensive discoloration rather than a clean canvas. The time has long passed for the Board and the City to strip away the past and adopt fresh, race-neutral selection procedures. And court-approved racial preferences must end as soon as possible. 132 The district court declined to set deadlines for the development of valid selection procedures. The court agreed that use of such testing procedures would be desirable, but nevertheless summarily decided that specific requirements for development and review [of lawful tests], particularly if accompanied by a judicially-imposed timetable, would be unrealistic, unworkable, and unwise. That decision was an abuse of discretion. 133 While it may be difficult to develop valid selection procedures, that task is far from impossible. Other public employment cases prove that it can be done. See, e.g., Hamer v. City of Atlanta, 872 F.2d 1521, 1532 (11th Cir.1989) (upholding the district court's finding that a written test used to determine promotions from firefighter to fire lieutenant was properly validated); Brunet v. City of Columbus, 1 F.3d 390, 411 (6th Cir.1993) (upholding use of professionally-developed firefighter exam); Bridgeport Guardians, Inc. v. City of Bridgeport, 933 F.2d 1140, 1148 (2d Cir.) (affirming the use of a job-related exam in conjunction with banding, a technique designed to reduce the test's disparate impact), cert. denied, --- U.S. ----, 112 S.Ct. 337, 116 L.Ed.2d 277 (1991); Police Officers for Equal Rights v. City of Columbus, 916 F.2d 1092, 1101-02 (6th Cir.1990) (affirming a district court's finding that the challenged portion of a police lieutenant exam was job-related); Bernard v. Gulf Oil Corp., 890 F.2d 735, 746 (5th Cir.1989) (affirming the district court's determination that the tests Gulf used to determine which employees were eligible for promotion were job related, based upon the validation studies and expert testimony), cert. denied, 497 U.S. 1003, 110 S.Ct. 3237, 111 L.Ed.2d 748 (1990); Berkman v. City of New York, 812 F.2d 52, 59-60 (2d Cir.) (approving the district court's conclusion that physical examinations used by the city to select entry-level firefighters were valid), cert. denied, 484 U.S. 848, 108 S.Ct. 146, 98 L.Ed.2d 102 (1987); Clady v. County of Los Angeles, 770 F.2d 1421, 1430-32 (9th Cir.1985) (affirming the district court's conclusion that a written examination used by the county to hire firefighters was valid), cert. denied, 475 U.S. 1109, 106 S.Ct. 1516, 89 L.Ed.2d 915 (1986); Rivera v. City of Wichita Falls, 665 F.2d 531, 538 (5th Cir. Unit A 1982) (affirming a district court finding that a police officer exam was job-related); Contreras v. City of Los Angeles, 656 F.2d 1267, 1281, 1284 (9th Cir.1981) (concluding that an auditor exam was job-related), cert. denied, 455 U.S. 1021, 102 S.Ct. 1719, 72 L.Ed.2d 140 (1982); United States v. Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Dep't, D.Nev. (No. CV-S-84-809-RDF (LRL), June 11, 1991) (report and recommendation of magistrate judge) (finding a professionally-developed police officer exam to be lawful); cf. Guardians Ass'n v. Civil Serv. Comm'n, 630 F.2d 79, 103 (2d Cir.1980) (holding that an employer faces a substantial task in demonstrating the job-relatedness of a test, [b]ut the task is by no means impossible), cert. denied, 452 U.S. 940, 101 S.Ct. 3083, 69 L.Ed.2d 954 (1981); Craig v. County of Los Angeles, 626 F.2d 659, 664-66 (9th Cir.1980) (upholding the district court's determination that success on a written exam was predictive of success at the police academy, but remanding for a determination of whether success at the academy correlated to job performance), cert. denied, 450 U.S. 919, 101 S.Ct. 1364, 67 L.Ed.2d 345 (1981); United States v. City of San Francisco, 696 F.Supp. 1287, 1297 (N.D.Cal.1988) (approving a consent decree that set out a schedule of test-development deadlines), aff'd in part and modified in part on other grounds sub nom. Davis v. City of San Francisco, 890 F.2d 1438 (9th Cir.1989), cert. denied, 498 U.S. 897, 111 S.Ct. 248, 112 L.Ed.2d 206 (1990). 134 Moreover, the conclusion that job selection procedures cannot be brought into compliance with Title VII necessarily implies that Congress set up a legal requirement that is impossible to meet. We are loath to impute such a gross error to our nation's elected representatives. Had Congress shared the district court's belief that validation of selection procedures was unrealistic, unworkable, and unwise, then Congress would not have made a specific exception to Title VII for the proper use of professionally designed tests. Guardians Ass'n v. Civil Serv. Comm'n, 630 F.2d 79, 89 (2d Cir.1980), cert. denied, 452 U.S. 940, 101 S.Ct. 3083, 69 L.Ed.2d 954 (1981). Valid tests may prove administratively burdensome to design and validate, but minimizing inconvenience is not a constitutional value. It certainly does not outweigh the importance of ending racial discrimination. See, e.g., Hayes v. North State Law Enforcement Ass'n, 10 F.3d 207, 216 (4th Cir.1993). As Judge Frank M. Johnson, Jr., has explained, [t]he Constitution does not put a price on constitutional rights, in terms either of time or money. The rights guaranteed by the Constitution are to be made effective in the present. Jack Bass, Taming the Storm 398 (1993) (quoting written statement made by Judge Johnson during confirmation proceedings regarding his appointment to the Court of Appeals). If the process of approving selection procedures places undue strain on the district court's resources, it may appoint a special master to assist with the task. 135 Our conclusion that the development of valid job-selection procedures is feasible is buttressed by the fact that, even while complaining about the burdens of test-development, the Board claims that approximately two-thirds of the thirty-five exams it administered in 1991 had no disparate impact on the passing rate of blacks. The Board does not purport to claim that its tests are sufficiently job-related to satisfy Title VII. But its alleged success at developing tests with no disparate impact puts us at a loss to understand the Board's refusal to subject even a single exam to judicial scrutiny and its vigorous opposition to any deadline for doing so. The Board's self-professed capacity for designing non-discriminatory tests belies its contention that test-development is too tricky for deadlines. 12 136 As Judge Clark recently noted for this Court, our experience teaches us that on some occasions public employers prefer the supervision of a federal court to confronting directly [their] employees and the public. United States v. City of Miami, 2 F.3d 1497, 1507 (11th Cir.1993). The Constitution was not designed to ease the lot of public officials, and it is not the role of federal courts to insulate public officials from the people. Instead, woven throughout the Constitution is a commitment to democratic self-rule, making public officials answerable to the people. While one of the most important duties of federal courts is to protect the constitutional and statutory rights of minorities, interference in the processes of another branch of government should be as narrow and short-lived as fulfilling that constitutional duty allows. Remedial decrees should require the responsible officials to end their unconstitutional action posthaste. Remedial decrees should not foster prolonged oversight and management by the least representative branch. Federal court supervision of local government has always been intended as a temporary measure and should  'not extend beyond the time required to remedy the effects of past intentional discrimination.'  Board of Educ. v. Dowell, 498 U.S. 237, 248, 111 S.Ct. 630, 637, 112 L.Ed.2d 715 (1991) (school desegregation case) (quoting Spangler v. Pasadena City Bd. of Educ., 611 F.2d 1239, 1245 n. 5 (9th Cir.1979) (Kennedy, J., concurring)). 137 Valid selection procedures are both possible in practice and constitutionally necessary. Therefore, on remand, the district court should set prompt deadlines for the City and the Board to develop and implement valid job-selection procedures. 13 138
139 We now turn to a discussion of the decree's annual goals, which guide the year-to-year actions of the City and Board. Such annual hiring goals may serve the ultimate purpose of eliminating discrimination in two different ways. First, affirmative action may be needed to remedy present discrimination where less-suspect means are unavailable or inadequate. Second, hiring preferences may be essential to cure the lingering effects of past discrimination. We first consider the extent to which these two purposes justify continued use of the annual goals; we then discuss how the annual goals should be modified to make their interim use narrowly tailored. 140 Until valid job-selection procedures are in place, some use of racial preferences is necessary to counteract the ongoing effects of racially discriminatory testing. Were such race-conscious decisionmaking not allowed prior to the implementation of race-neutral selection devices, the City and the Board would find themselves in the impossible position of trying to comply with Title VII on the basis of discrimination-tainted procedures. The Wilks class implicitly conceded as much at the modification hearing, and argues on appeal only that supplemental affirmative action should be disallowed in the absence of a firm schedule for adoption of lawful tests. We have already decided that adoption of such a schedule is necessary. Therefore, pending prompt implementation of valid selection procedures, the Board may continue to make race-conscious certifications to the City and the City may continue to take race into account when hiring and promoting. We will discuss later the character of race-conscious decisionmaking that is permitted. 141 In addition, even after valid selection procedures are in place, affirmative action may be needed to cure past discrimination by the City and the Board. However, we refuse simply to assume that the effects of past discrimination in public employment have endured or will endure indefinitely. For the past thirteen years, the decrees have mandated that the City and Board affirmatively hire blacks as a remedy for past wrongs. This court-approved remedy has apparently had substantial impact. 142 On remand, the district court must determine from evidence whether the effects of past City and Board discrimination persist. As long as significant specified effects linger, affirmative action may be justified despite the implementation of valid selection procedures. Public employers cannot escape their constitutional responsibilities merely by adopting facially-neutral policies that institutionalize the effects of prior discrimination and thus perpetuate de facto discrimination. See United States v. Fordice, --- U.S. ----, ---- - ----, 112 S.Ct. 2727, 2735-36, 120 L.Ed.2d 575 (1992) (school desegregation case). Here, however, it is not at all clear that broad affirmative action is still needed to cure past discrimination by the City and the Board. After thirteen years of racial preferences--and even longer with respect to firefighters and police officers--the district court should consider the retrospective, remedial purpose of affirmative action satisfied except where it finds that past discrimination continues to taint a particular position. Absent such findings, and once valid selection procedures have been adopted, affirmative action will no longer be legitimate; the goals of rectifying past and present discrimination will have been achieved. 143 Having discussed the circumstances in which the City and the Board may continue to use annual affirmative action goals, we now discuss the form that any further affirmative action must take. Affirmative action, when allowed, must be flexible, reasonably related to the pool of qualified minorities, and impose no undue burden on innocents. See Howard v. McLucas, 871 F.2d 1000, 1008 (11th Cir.), cert. denied, 493 U.S. 1002, 110 S.Ct. 560, 107 L.Ed.2d 555 (1989). As presently written, the City and Board decrees' affirmative action provisions do not satisfy these requirements. 144 The present annual goals for blacks lack flexibility. These goals have been set, apparently arbitrarily, at figures ranging from twenty-five to fifty percent, depending on the position. We might allow such fixed-percentage goals, under the theory that they represented an estimate of the speed with which past discrimination could be eradicated, if they were in fact treated as goals rather than absolute commandments. The Cone Corp. Court, for example, upheld a plan that set a goal of twenty-five percent minority participation because the county granted waivers whenever that goal could not be achieved. Cone Corp. v. Hillsborough County, 908 F.2d 908, 916-17 (11th Cir.), cert. denied, 498 U.S. 983, 111 S.Ct. 516, 112 L.Ed.2d 528 (1990). Here, by contrast, the annual appointment goals have been applied as rigid quotas. In the early 1980s, the City mechanically appointed equal numbers of blacks and whites to fire department positions without any consideration of relative qualifications in order to meet the stated fifty-percent goal. In 1989, the City promoted to fire lieutenant seven blacks previously found by a City review board to be unqualified--despite the competing candidacy of several whites found by the review panel to be more qualified. The City apparently viewed its annual fifty-percent goal as mandatory, and believed that if it did not promote blacks and whites in approximately equal numbers, then it could make no appointments at all. As implemented, these goals lack the flexibility that the Constitution requires. 145 Despite its rigid application of the annual goals, the City contends that two provisions in its decree create sufficient flexibility to satisfy strict scrutiny. The City chiefly relies on paragraph two of its decree, which provides: 146 Nothing herein shall be interpreted as requiring the City to hire unnecessary personnel, or to hire, transfer, or promote a person who is not qualified, or to hire, transfer or 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. 147 According to the City, this paragraph allows the City to adjust its goals when there is an insufficient pool of qualified black applicants. 148 We find the City's interpretation unpersuasive. On its own terms, paragraph two does not permit departure from the goals unless and until the Board develops a job-related selection procedure--i.e., a test that can accurately determine the relative qualifications of candidates. See In re Birmingham Reverse Discrimination Employment Litig., 833 F.2d 1492, 1497 (11th Cir.1987) (discussing the district court's understanding that paragraph two does not apply until validated exams are in place), aff'd sub nom., Martin v. Wilks, 490 U.S. 755, 109 S.Ct. 2180, 104 L.Ed.2d 835 (1989). While paragraph two may underscore the need for valid selection procedures, absent such procedures it does not help the City survive strict scrutiny. 149 The City also suggests that paragraph five of its decree infuses significant flexibility into the City's hiring and promotion goals. That paragraph provides, in relevant part: 150 The parties also preserve the right to adjust, through agreement and subject to the approval of the Court, any of the goals provided by this Decree where it can be shown that a professional degree, license or certificate is required to perform the duties of any particular job or jobs in the City's workforce and that blacks and/or women hold such degrees, licenses or certificates in percentage terms which are inconsistent with the goals provided. 151 This clause mitigates the rigidity of the City decree's goals in some situations, but it does not go far enough. First, while paragraph five allows the City to take account of the unavailability of sufficient blacks with degrees and licenses, it imposes no duty to do so. The requirement of narrow tailoring is obligatory, not permissive. Second, the clause focuses only on degrees, licenses, and certificates. Such an unnecessarily limited scope is improper. When determining the proportion of blacks in the qualified labor pool, the City and Board should also take into account other objective prerequisites for employment, such as age or experience requirements, for which data is reasonably available. Where the City always makes promotions to a particular senior position from among individuals holding a particular junior position, the relative proportion of blacks in the junior position will generally be the most significant determinant of the proportion of blacks in the qualified applicant pool. Finally, paragraph five of the City decree applies only to the City, not to the Board. 152 Thus, in their present form, the annual goals are unconstitutionally unrefined. On remand, the district court must re-write the decrees to make clear that the annual goals cannot last indefinitely. Once a valid selection procedure is in place for a particular position, neither the City nor the Board may continue to certify, hire, or promote according to a race-conscious goal absent proof of ongoing racial discrimination, or of the lingering effects of past racial discrimination, with respect to that position. Under no circumstances may the City hire or promote, or the Board certify, candidates who are demonstrably less qualified than other candidates, based upon the results of valid, job-related selection procedures, unless the district court finds that such appointments are necessary to cure employment discrimination by the City or Board. 153 In addition, the district court must re-write the decrees to relate the annual goals to the proportion of blacks in the relevant, objectively-qualified labor pool, calculated with reasonably available data. The district court may set an annual affirmative action goal that is greater than the proportion of blacks in the qualified labor pool if the district court finds that unlawful employment discrimination by the City or Board has reduced the proportion of blacks either in the qualified pool or in the position itself. In such circumstances, the district court may set a flexible goal that does not unduly burden the interests of innocent third parties and that is reasonably related to the pool of qualified blacks. See, e.g., Cone Corp. v. Hillsborough County, 908 F.2d 908, 916-17 (11th Cir.1990) (approving a flexible affirmative action goal set at approximately twice the proportion of minorities in the qualified pool); Howard v. McLucas, 871 F.2d 1000, 1008 (11th Cir.) (approving a flexible, 50% affirmative action goal in order expeditious[ly] to remedy the identified effects of unlawful discrimination), cert. denied, 493 U.S. 1002, 110 S.Ct. 560, 107 L.Ed.2d 555 (1989); cf. In re Birmingham Reverse Discrimination Employment Litig., 20 F.3d 1525, 1542-43 (11th Cir.1994) (suggesting that affirmative action goals must be flexible and tied in some reasonable manner to the proportion of blacks in the qualified pool). Appropriately designed, such increased goals may hasten the end to judicial oversight by expeditiously remedying past discrimination. 154 The Constitution tolerates race-based remedies only when they are necessary either to remedy past discrimination or to correct present discrimination until valid selection procedures are in place. Affirmative action is at most a temporary treatment; a cure for discrimination requires more fundamental and more even-handed reform. We cannot allow stop-gap remedies to turn into permanent palliatives. Therefore, the district court is directed to order the City and the Board to develop race-neutral selection procedures forthwith, not at the casual pace the Board has passed off as progress for thirteen years. The Board's decree is not a security blanket to be clung to, but a badge of shame, a monument to the Board's past and present failure to treat all candidates in a fair and non-discriminatory manner. Federal judicial oversight should provide public employers no refuge from their responsibilities. We are confident that, on remand, the district court will modify and enforce the decrees in a way that will bring that truth home. 155
156 We now consider what modifications are required to the decrees' gender-based affirmative action provisions. We first consider the prerequisites for modification, and then discuss the nature of the required modifications. 157
158 As previously discussed, Rufo normally permits modification only to accommodate a significant change in facts or law. Rufo v. Inmates of Suffolk County Jail, --- U.S. ----, ----, 112 S.Ct. 748, 765, 116 L.Ed.2d 867 (1992). However, we must adapt that general rule to the peculiar procedural posture of the present case. Rufo involved, and envisions, a typical consent decree modification proceeding in which all the participants are parties to the original decree. Cf. Fed.R.Civ.P. 60(b) (allowing parties to seek decree modifications). Parties to a consent decree are estopped by their status as signatories from challenging the decree's validity under law existing when they accepted the decree. In re Birmingham Reverse Discrimination Employment Litig., 833 F.2d 1492, 1501 (11th Cir.1987), aff'd sub nom., Martin v. Wilks, 490 U.S. 755, 109 S.Ct. 2180, 104 L.Ed.2d 835 (1989). As a result, where a modification proceeding involves only parties to the original decree, a change in law or fact is a prerequisite to modification or termination of the decree. 159 That was Rufo, but this case is different. Consistent with the Supreme Court's decision in Martin v. Wilks, the district court allowed the Wilks class, which was not a party to the original decrees, to intervene in the present modification proceeding. The Wilks intervenors, unlike the original parties, are not estopped from collaterally attacking the validity of the decree as originally adopted. Martin v. Wilks, 490 U.S. at 761-62, 109 S.Ct. at 2184. In fact, they are doing just that in the parallel reverse-discrimination case. 160 This atypical situation raises the question whether intervenors, like parties, may challenge a consent decree's validity based on changes in the law alone, or instead may seek modifications even if there has been no change in the law. 14 Rufo does not consider or answer this question, which should not recur often. 15 161 Common sense demands that intervenors be allowed to challenge the constitutional validity of a consent decree under the law that exists at the time of the challenge, irrespective of whether that law has changed since the decree was entered. Because intervenors may seek to alter or dissolve a consent decree through a collateral attack, In re Birmingham Reverse Discrimination Employment Litig., 833 F.2d 1492, 1496 & n. 13, 1498-99 (11th Cir.1987), aff'd sub nom., Martin v. Wilks, 490 U.S. 755, 109 S.Ct. 2180, 104 L.Ed.2d 835 (1989), it is pointless to prohibit a similar challenge in a modification proceeding. It is far better to resolve all of the modification questions at one time rather than to split those questions between two or more proceedings. 162 We hold that, in the unusual circumstances of this case, the intervenors may bring challenges based on current law, regardless of whether that law has changed. Accordingly, modifications are warranted if necessary to prevent the decrees from violating governing constitutional standards--whether or not those standards had already been announced at the time the decrees were entered. Only by so adapting Rufo's prerequisite to the unusual posture of the present case can we adhere to Rufo's spirit: a call for flexible, prospective reconsideration of aging consent decrees to ensure their continuing validity. Moreover, although our holding may at first appear to make consent decrees more vulnerable, it should have just the opposite effect. A modification proceeding may, to the extent outlined above, be used to make constitutional an otherwise unconstitutional decree--saving it from continuing collateral attack. 163 We now consider whether existing constitutional standards require modification of these decrees' gender preferences. When the district court entered the decrees, the Supreme Court had recently decided that gender-based classifications were subject to intermediate scrutiny under the Equal Protection Clause. Craig v. Boren, 429 U.S. 190, 197, 97 S.Ct. 451, 457, 50 L.Ed.2d 397 (1976). In addition, the Supreme Court had specifically employed an intermediate scrutiny standard in upholding a gender-conscious government program designed to [reduce] the disparity in economic condition between men and women caused by the long history of discrimination against women. Califano v. Webster, 430 U.S. 313, 317, 97 S.Ct. 1192, 1194, 51 L.Ed.2d 360 (1977). The decision in Mississippi University for Women v. Hogan, 458 U.S. 718, 102 S.Ct. 3331, 73 L.Ed.2d 1090 (1982), clarified that a classification must pass intermediate scrutiny even if the state's asserted purpose is benign. Id. at 728, 102 S.Ct. at 3338. 164 It has been suggested that Croson changed the rule established by Craig, Califano, and Hogan, so that gender-based affirmative action is now subject to strict scrutiny just like race-based affirmative action. See John Galotto, Note, Strict Scrutiny for Gender, Via Croson, 93 Colum.L.Rev. 508, 508 (1993) (Croson compels the application of strict scrutiny to all forms of gender discrimination.); but see Peter Lurie, Comment, The Law as They Found It: Disentangling Gender-Based Affirmative Action Programs from Croson, 59 U.Chi.L.Rev. 1563, 1564 (1992) (One standard, intermediate scrutiny, must apply to all gender classifications.). Indeed, several post-Croson cases have, with little or no discussion, followed this approach. See Brunet v. City of Columbus, 1 F.3d 390, 404 (6th Cir.1993) (Under the precedent in this Circuit, gender based affirmative action plans are subject to strict scrutiny when challenged under the Equal Protection Clause.); Long v. City of Saginaw, 911 F.2d 1192, 1196 (6th Cir.1990) (The strict scrutiny standard was adopted by a majority of the Court in [Croson ] as the standard by which 'affirmative action' cases are to be reviewed.); Conlin v. Blanchard, 890 F.2d 811, 816 (6th Cir.1989) (applying strict scrutiny, without discussion, to a gender-conscious affirmative action program); American Subcontractors Ass'n v. City of Atlanta, 259 Ga. 14, 376 S.E.2d 662, 664 (1989) (striking down a race- and gender-conscious affirmative action program under a strict scrutiny standard, the appropriateness of which is conceded by the parties). 165 We find those cases unpersuasive. Nothing in Croson suggests that the Supreme Court intended sub silentio to strike down its own decisions applying intermediate scrutiny to gender classifications. While it may seem odd that it is now easier to uphold affirmative action programs for women than for racial minorities, Supreme Court precedent compels that result. Compare Croson, 488 U.S. at 498-508, 109 S.Ct. at 724-30 (applying strict scrutiny to race-based affirmative action) with Califano, 430 U.S. at 317, 97 S.Ct. at 457 (applying intermediate scrutiny to gender-based affirmative action). We may not, of course, disobey the Supreme Court. 166 We also note that each post-Croson case that has considered in detail whether Croson applies to gender classifications has concluded that it does not. Contractors Ass'n v. City of Philadelphia, 6 F.3d 990, 1000-01 (3d Cir.1993); Coral Constr. Co. v. King County, 941 F.2d 910, 930-31 (9th Cir.1991), cert. denied, --- U.S. ----, 112 S.Ct. 875, 116 L.Ed.2d 780 (1992); cf. Milwaukee County Pavers Ass'n v. Fiedler, 922 F.2d 419, 422 (7th Cir.) (Croson is about favoritism toward racial and ethnic groups, not about favoritism toward women. The Supreme Court does not consider discrimination against women to be as invidious ... as discrimination against blacks or other racial minorities; nor ... does it consider discrimination against men to be as invidious as racial discrimination.), cert. denied, 500 U.S. 954, 111 S.Ct. 2261, 114 L.Ed.2d 714 (1991); see also Lamprecht v. Federal Communications Comm'n, 958 F.2d 382, 391 (D.C.Cir.1992) (majority opinion of Thomas, Circuit Justice). A year after Croson, we recognized that intermediate scrutiny still applied in gender discrimination cases: For a considerable time now, the law has been quite clear that [discrimination] on the basis of sex is unconstitutional, unless that conduct is ... substantially related to the furtherance of an important government interest. Nicholson v. Georgia Dep't of Human Resources, 918 F.2d 145, 148 (11th Cir.1990). 167 Our decision in Cone Corp. v. Hillsborough County, 908 F.2d 908 (11th Cir.), cert. denied, 498 U.S. 983, 111 S.Ct. 516, 112 L.Ed.2d 528 (1990), says nothing to the contrary. There, we held that a race- and gender-conscious minority business enterprise program survived strict scrutiny. Id. at 914-17. We did not consider whether a less-exacting standard applied to the gender-conscious provisions of the program. We did not need to do so, given our holding that the plan satisfied even the searching Croson test. Intermediate scrutiny remains the applicable constitutional standard in gender discrimination cases. 168 Although there has been no significant change in the governing constitutional standard since the gender-conscious provisions of the decrees were adopted, for reasons we have discussed relating to the presence of intervenors, those provisions nevertheless must comply with present constitutional standards. We next explain why the gender-conscious provisions of the decrees are unconstitutional and require further modification. 169
170 A consent decree must of course be modified if ... one or more of the obligations placed upon the parties has become impermissible under federal law. Rufo v. Inmates of Suffolk County Jail, --- U.S. ----, ----, 112 S.Ct. 748, 762, 116 L.Ed.2d 867 (1992). This rule requires us to evaluate the gender-conscious provisions of the consent decree under the equal protection standard articulated by Craig and Califano and clarified by Hogan. Under this standard, no gender preference can survive unless it is substantially related to an important government interest. Hogan, 458 U.S. at 724, 102 S.Ct. at 3336. 171
Government Interest in Gender-Based Relief 172 We are convinced that the City and Board have established a sufficiently important government interest to justify gender-conscious affirmative action. Under the intermediate scrutiny test, a local government must demonstrate some past discrimination against women, but not necessarily discrimination by the government itself. One 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. See, e.g., Hogan, 458 U.S. at 728-29, 102 S.Ct. at 3338 (comparing the social security preference upheld in Califano, which took into account that women had been hindered from earning as much as men, with the all-female nursing program in Hogan, struck down in part because the state had made no showing that women lacked opportunities in the field of nursing); cf. Coral Constr. Co. v. King County, 941 F.2d 910, 932 (9th Cir.1991) (noting that [s]ome degree of discrimination must have occurred in a particular field before a gender-specific remedy may be instituted in that field, but that intermediate scrutiny does not require any showing of governmental involvement ... in the discrimination it seeks to remedy), cert. denied, --- U.S. ----, 112 S.Ct. 875, 116 L.Ed.2d 780 (1992). The principal purpose of intermediate scrutiny is not so much to make sure that gender-based classifications are used only as a last resort, Hayes v. North State Law Enforcement Ass'n, 10 F.3d 207, 217 (4th Cir.1993) (racial discrimination case), as it is to ensure that gender classifications are based on reasoned analysis rather than archaic stereotypes, see Contractors Ass'n v. City of Philadelphia, 6 F.3d 990, 1010 (3d Cir.1993) (The Supreme Court has stated 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.'  (quoting Metro Broadcasting, Inc. v. Federal Communications Comm'n, 497 U.S. 547, 582-83, 110 S.Ct. 2997, 3018-19, 111 L.Ed.2d 445 (1990))); Lamprecht v. Federal Communications Comm'n, 958 F.2d 382, 393 n. 3 (D.C.Cir.1992) (majority opinion of Thomas, Circuit Justice) (noting that intermediate scrutiny is intended to ensure reasoned analysis of classifications, and commenting that analysis is never reasoned when it rests on stereotypes rather than facts); Recent Case, 106 Harv.L.Rev. 804, 808 (1993). In a case such as this, in which there is no allegation that gender-based affirmative action was adopted because of archaic and overbroad assumptions about the relative needs and capacities of the sexes, Roberts v. United States Jaycees, 468 U.S. 609, 625, 104 S.Ct. 3244, 3253, 82 L.Ed.2d 462 (1984), the important government interest inquiry turns on whether there is evidence of past discrimination in the economic sphere at which the affirmative action program is directed. 173 The record before us contains substantial anecdotal and statistical evidence of past discrimination against women, including discrimination by both the City and the Board. For example, [f]or many years announcements for positions as police patrolman and firefighter were restricted to males only. United States v. Jefferson County, 28 Fair Empl.Prac.Cas. (BNA) 1834, at 1838, 1981 WL 27018 (N.D.Ala.1981), aff'd, 720 F.2d 1511 (11th Cir.1983). Coupled with that, women were grossly underrepresented in a variety of City positions at the time the consent decrees were negotiated. Id. These and related findings by the district court, see id., justify the district court's finding that there is more than ample reason for the Personnel Board and the City of Birmingham to be concerned that they would be in time held liable for discrimination. Id. We are satisfied that the City and Board have demonstrated an important government interest: eradicating gender discrimination against women in public employment. 174
175 Substantial Relation to the Important Interest 176 The present decree is not substantially related to the goal of eliminating gender discrimination in public employment. That goal requires, at a minimum, the development of gender-neutral selection procedures--whether or not developed in conjunction with a program of affirmative female appointments designed to remedy discrimination against women. Otherwise, both discriminatory selection procedures and remedial gender-based appointments would likely continue forever. While the present decrees mandate appointment of women, for thirteen years these decrees have done little or nothing to promote the development of selection procedures that are fair to women. In fact, as with race, the Board has yet to demonstrate the gender-neutrality or job-relatedness of a single employment exam. This glaring failure suggests that the decrees have, in a very real sense, perpetuated gender discrimination by allowing the Board and the City to use biased tests coupled with gender preferences. 177 It was an abuse of discretion for the district court to permit such a potentially indefinite cycle of discrimination to continue. Perpetual use of affirmative action may foster the misguided belief that women cannot compete on their own. That notion is just as pernicious and offensive as its converse, that women ought to be excluded from all enterprises because their place is in the home. Coral Constr., 941 F.2d at 932 (quoting Associated General Contractors v. City of San Francisco, 813 F.2d 922, 941 (9th Cir.1987)). When affirmative action outlives the pressing necessity that justifies its use, it begins to breed the very archaic and overbroad assumptions about the relative needs and capacities of the sexes that it was designed to erase. Roberts v. United States Jaycees, 468 U.S. 609, 625, 104 S.Ct. 3244, 3253, 82 L.Ed.2d 462 (1984). In view of that phenomenon, it is not surprising that the class of female employees in this case urged the district court to impose a timetable for adoption of valid, job-related selection procedures. 178 On remand, the district court should modify the decree to impose a set of prompt deadlines on the City and the Board for the development of gender-neutral selection procedures. As these procedures are developed and put into place, the City and Board must stop employing any affirmative goals or quotas for female appointments unless further affirmative action is needed to eradicate lingering effects of discrimination against women. However, because gender goals need be only substantially related (rather than narrowly tailored) to their goal, compare, e.g., Kahn v. Shevin, 416 U.S. 351, 356 n. 10, 94 S.Ct. 1734, 1737 n. 10, 40 L.Ed.2d 189 (1974) (rejecting Justice Brennan's dissenting opinion that a Florida property-tax exemption for widows that was intended to reduce the economic disparity between men and women should have been crafted as narrowly as possible to achieve that goal) with Croson, 488 U.S. at 507, 109 S.Ct. at 729 (requiring narrow tailoring), the decrees need not tie gender goals to the proportion of qualified female applicants.