Opinion ID: 566091
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Compelling Purpose

Text: 36 The Constitution requires some showing of prior discrimination by the public employer to justify the remedial use of race-preferential measures. See Wygant, 476 U.S. at 274, 106 S.Ct. at 1847, 90 L.Ed.2d at 269 (Equal Protection Clause requires some showing of prior discrimination by the government unit involved before allowing the use of racial classifications in order to remedy such discrimination) (Powell, J., joined by Burger, C.J., and Rehnquist and O'Connor, JJ.). The plurality opinion adds that Hazelwood demonstrates this Court's focus on prior discrimination as the justification for, and the limitation on, a State's adoption of race-based remedies. Id. at 275, 106 S.Ct. at 1847, 90 L.Ed.2d at 269. The majority of the Court in Croson held that public employers, like Dade County, must identify ... discrimination, public or private, with some specificity before they may use race-conscious relief. Croson, 488 U.S. at 505, 109 S.Ct. at 727, 102 L.Ed.2d at 889 (opinion of the Court). 37 Generalized allegations of discrimination in the subject industry, or in education and training, hold little probative value in identifying discrimination in the relevant industry. See id. at 503, 109 S.Ct. at 726, 102 L.Ed.2d at 888. 25 Evidence of discrimination in other jurisdictions or on a nationwide basis also have little or no probative value. Id. Statements by public officials assigning benign or remedial objectives to an affirmative action program also remains inadequate without additional proof. Id. As Justice O'Connor sees it, the foregoing types of generalized evidence are too amorphous to justify race-based relief. They do not adequately identify actionable discrimination nor do they permit tailoring of an appropriately narrow remedy. Id. 38 As the Court points out above, Croson reaffirmed the use of statistical comparisons between the employer's work force and the composition of the relevant population as probative of a pattern of discrimination. To successfully meet the factual predicate under the first prong of the strict scrutiny standard by employing indirect evidence in the form of statistics, Dade County has the burden of producing evidence that the statistical disparity between the relevant employee and work force populations is at least approaching a prima facie case of a constitutional or statutory violation. Id. at 500, 109 S.Ct. at 724, 102 L.Ed.2d at 886; see also Wygant, 476 U.S. at 274-75, 106 S.Ct. at 1847, 90 L.Ed.2d at 269 (plurality opinion), and id. at 293, 106 S.Ct. at 1857, 90 L.Ed.2d at 281 (O'Connor, J., concurring). The following issues need be addressed: (i) Does the Dade County firefighter position at issue require special qualifications? see Croson, 488 U.S. at 501, 109 S.Ct. at 725, 102 L.Ed.2d at 887; (ii) May general population figures be used? (iii) Has the proper geographic scope been employed? and (iv) What degree of imbalance constitutes approaching a prima facie case of a violation? 39
40 Special Qualifications? 41 In Croson, Justice O'Connor reaffirmed the significance that the Court places on the nature of the job receiving race-based preferences. Id.; and see discussion of Croson, supra. To determine discriminatory exclusion, unskilled positions are compared to a different statistical pool than for jobs requiring special training. Id., and see Teamsters, 431 U.S. at 337-38, 97 S.Ct. at 1855-56, 52 L.Ed.2d at 416-17. 42 The Supreme Court has given only limited guidance in distinguishing skilled positions from unskilled. In Hazelwood, 433 U.S. at 308 n. 13, 97 S.Ct. at 2742, 53 L.Ed.2d at 777, for example, the Court stated that the truck driver position at issue in Teamsters required no special qualifications because the job skill there involved ... is one that many persons possess or can readily acquire. 26 Likewise, the Court has ruled that entry-level spots in a job training program require no special prior abilities because they are, in fact, designed to provide expertise. Johnson, 480 U.S. at 632, 107 S.Ct. at 1452, 94 L.Ed.2d at 631. On the other hand, the public school teachers at issue in Hazelwood, according to the Court, did work in a profession requiring special expertise. 27 43 Candidates for selection as a firefighter for Dade County have to meet certain basic requirements (see n. 6, supra ). However, as the district court found, none of these requirements reach the level of special expertise. There is no basis for rejecting as clearly erroneous, F.R.Civ.P. 52(a), the trial court's finding that firefighter applicants are unskilled for purposes of comparative statistical analysis. 44
45 When the Supreme Court has faced an unskilled position of employment, it has compared the employer's work force both to the area's general population, Teamsters, supra, and to the area's generalized labor market, Weber, supra. In Johnson, the Court reaffirmed both comparisons and suggested that either would be appropriate, expressing no preference between the alternative pools. Johnson, 480 U.S. at 631-32, 107 S.Ct. at 1451-52, 94 L.Ed.2d at 630-31 (In determining whether an imbalance exists that would justify taking sex or race into account, a comparison of the percentage of minorities or women in the employer's work force with the percentage in the area labor market or general population is appropriate in analyzing jobs that require no special expertise ... or training programs designed to provide expertise.) (citing Teamsters, supra, and Weber, supra ). In Croson, the Court seemed to lump both choices together by referring to the composition of the relevant population. Croson, 488 U.S. at 501, 109 S.Ct. at 725, 102 L.Ed.2d at 887. 46 The district court in this case simply looked at the percentages of minorities in Dade County, and compared that with the percentages of minorities employed as firefighters in the Department, to decide whether the disparities justified an affirmative action program. 28 Because there is nothing in this record showing that the use of general population figures is improper, and no attack has in any way been leveled at its use, or assertion been made that a different labor pool should be employed than the general population to determine whether or not there was prior discrimination in the Fire Department, I would approve the district court's usage of the general population for statistical comparative purposes. 47
48 The Supreme Court has yet to give definitive guidance about precisely how to identify the appropriate geographic limits to a labor pool. 29 Accordingly, lower courts have differed sharply over how to define the geographic boundaries for the relevant labor market. See Hammon, 826 F.2d at 78 (looking only to the labor force of the District of Columbia itself provided an entirely artificial comparison, because the fire department recruited in Maryland and Virginia) (Starr, J., concurring); Ledoux v. District of Columbia, 820 F.2d 1293 (D.C.Cir.1987) (relying primarily upon a labor pool confined to the geographic borders of the District of Columbia to find manifest racial and gender imbalances in the D.C. police force), vacated, 841 F.2d 400 (D.C.Cir.1988). 49 In our case, the use of the Dade County geographical boundaries has gone unchallenged, and for good (geographical) reasons. However, Peightal claims that the issue to be considered is the effect of several departmental mergers. The testimony at trial reveals that during the 1970's, there were several mergers which brought in a number of all white small departments into [the Dade County Fire Department]. However, there is very limited evidence in the record regarding these mergers. Fire Chief Edward Donaldson recalled three small mergers ... Homestead, Opa-Locka and Miami Springs, none of them having minority employees, and so--which probably, just from that alone increasing, the size of the department also increased by some forty to sixty majority employees. 30 50 Although the overall disparity between the percentages of minorities and nonminorities throughout the Dade County Fire Department may have been slightly altered by these mergers (which apparently occurred many years before the Plan was adopted), there is no record evidence that, absent the mergers, a disparity great enough to justify the Plan would not have existed. 31 I conclude that the proper geographic boundaries for comparative purposes were those of Dade County. 51
52 Case of a Violation? 53 The statistical imbalance between minorities and nonminorities in the relevant work force and available labor pool must be approaching a prima facie case of a constitutional or statutory violation before a public employer may voluntarily adopt racial or gender preferences. Croson, 488 U.S. at 500, 109 S.Ct. at 724, 102 L.Ed.2d at 886; see also Wygant, 476 U.S. at 274-75, 106 S.Ct. at 1847, 90 L.Ed.2d at 269 (plurality opinion), and id. at 293, 106 S.Ct. at 1857, 90 L.Ed.2d at 280 (O'Connor, J., concurring). Prior Court rulings indicate what sort of statistical disparity is required to make out a prima facie case of direct discrimination against an employer. The general rule is that the disparity must be greater than two or three standard deviations before it can be inferred that the employer has engaged in illegal discrimination under Title VII. Casteneda v. Partida, 430 U.S. 482, 497 n. 17, 97 S.Ct. 1272, 1281, 51 L.Ed.2d 498, 512 (1977); see also Hazelwood, 433 U.S. at 308, 97 S.Ct. at 2741, 53 L.Ed.2d at 777. The Court has also called that sort of imbalance a gross statistical disparit[y]. Hazelwood, 433 U.S. at 307, 97 S.Ct. at 2741, 53 L.Ed.2d at 777, cited with approval in Croson, 488 U.S. at 501, 109 S.Ct. at 725, 102 L.Ed.2d at 887. 32 54 I find that the percentages of minorities in the Metropolitan Dade County Fire Department, as compared with the percentages of minorities in Dade County, reveals a statistical disparity far in excess of two or three standard deviations. 33 55 I would heed Justice Holmes' warning that [t]he passion for equality sometimes leads to hollow formula Postal Telegraph-Cable Co. v. Tonopah & T.R. Co., 248 U.S. 471, 475, 39 S.Ct. 162, 164, 63 L.Ed. 365, 371 (1919); see also Watson v. Fort Worth Bank and Trust, 487 U.S. 977 at 995, 108 S.Ct. 2777 at 2789, 101 L.Ed.2d 827 at 846 n. 3 (1988) (we have emphasized the useful role that statistical methods can have in Title VII cases, but we have not suggested that any particular number of standard deviations can determine whether a plaintiff has made out a prima facie case in the complex area of employment discrimination.... Nor has a consensus developed around any alternative mathematical standard). However, the number of standard deviations in the case before the Court exceeds the approximate minimum to a degree sufficient to avoid the risks associated with the rigid application of an inflexible mathematical formula.