Opinion ID: 404965
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: the constitutionality of the orders

Text: 44 Appellants argue that the orders discriminate against nonminorities and thus are unconstitutional. 13 We first define the issue. This case does not involve an award of constructive seniority to individuals who have been discriminated against; the orders require that there be a certain percentage of minorities on the Police and Fire Departments without regard to whether the individuals comprising the minority percentage were the actual victims of past discrimination. 45 We turn to the Supreme Court cases, in addition to those already discussed, bearing on the issue. The first case is McDonald v. Santa Fe Trail Transp. Co., 427 U.S. 273, 286-87, 96 S.Ct. 2574, 2581-82, 49 L.Ed.2d 493 (1976), which held that section 1981 protects whites as well as blacks from racial discrimination in private employment. 46 Next came University of California Regents v. Bakke, 438 U.S. 265, 98 S.Ct. 2733, 57 L.Ed.2d 750 (1978). A divided court upheld so much of the judgment of the Supreme Court of California declaring the University's special admission program based on racial quotas unlawful. Id. at 270-71, 98 S.Ct. at 2737-38. It reversed, however, that portion of the California court's judgment enjoining the University from according any consideration to race in its admission process. Id. at 272, 99 S.Ct. at 2738. 47 United Steelworkers of America v. Weber, 443 U.S. 193, 99 S.Ct. 2721, 61 L.Ed.2d 480, reh'g denied, 444 U.S. 889, 100 S.Ct. 193, 62 L.Ed.2d 125 (1980), comes closer to our problem. In Weber the Court held that Title VII does not bar voluntary, private affirmative action undertaken by an employer in collaboration with a union, even when the plan is racially preferential or accomplished through a quota, so long as the plan is directed to eliminating conspicuous racial imbalance in traditionally segregated job categories. Id. at 208-09, 99 S.Ct. at 2729-2730. Although the court declined to define in detail the line of demarcation between permissible and impermissible affirmative action, id. at 208, 99 S.Ct. at 2729, it noted that the plan does not unnecessarily trammel the interests of the white employees. The plan does not require the discharge of white workers and their replacement with new black hirees. Id. 48 The fourth Supreme Court case that bears, albeit tangentially, on the issue is Fullilove v. Klutznick, 448 U.S. 448, 100 S.Ct. 2758, 65 L.Ed.2d 902 (1980). This case upheld the power of Congress to require in a congressional spending program that 10% of the federal funds granted for local public works projects must be used by the state or local grantee to procure services or supplies from businesses owned and controlled by members of statutorily identified minority groups. Id. at 453, 100 S.Ct. at 2762. 49 Although these decisions issued from a sharply divided court and were marked by separate concurrences and dissents, we think it is now firmly established that remedial relief for the effects of past discrimination need not be color-blind and that the use of minority-conscious percentage goals and quotas to overcome the present and ongoing effects of past discrimination is constitutionally permissible. See United States v. City of Miami, Fla., 614 F.2d 1322, 1335 (5th Cir. 1980) and cases cited therein. We also think that Weber implicitly approves the use of such remedies in sections 1981 and 1983 cases as well as Title VII cases. See Setser v. Novack Inv. Co., 657 F.2d 962, 966-67 (8th Cir. 1981) and cases cited therein. 50 None of the other Supreme Court cases, however, involve public employment nor address directly the situation before us; the conflict between a last hired, first fired seniority system and court orders seeking to maintain some semblance of racial balance in municipal Police and Fire Departments. There is no blinking the fact that there is significant difference between hiring and promoting in accord with a race-conscious ratio and insulating from discharge a percentage of employees because they are members of a minority group. In the former situation, there is only a postponement of expectations; in the layoff situation, employees with greater seniority lose their jobs. See Detroit Police Officers' Ass'n v. Young, 608 F.2d 671, 696 n.12 (6th Cir. 1979); Judge Skelly Wright, Color-Blind Theories and Color Conscious Remedies, 47 U.Chi.L.Rev. 213, 238-40 (1980). 51 We do not think the issue can be resolved by simply following the Title VII cases and awarding constructive seniority to those minority members of the departments that can show that they were discriminated against by the entry examinations given in 1968-1970. This is not an action for damages. The relief sought originally was not for individuals, but to correct a condition of racial imbalance. We do not know the exact effect the award of constructive seniority to the identifiable victims of the past discrimination would have on the minority percentages of the departments. Considering, however, that more than ten years have passed, we do know that such a limited remedy would result in minority ratios far below that set by the district court. 14 52 It must be stressed that the orders here do not require the continuation of the affirmative action programs by the hiring of minorities and the firing of whites. All they do is preserve the status quo at a 14.7 percent minority ratio for fire fighters and an 11.7 percent for policemen. Against a background of a present 30 percent minority population in Boston, this hardly can be deemed overreaching. Nor do we think it can fairly be characterized as unnecessarily trammeling the interests of the whites. United States v. Weber, 443 U.S. at 208, 99 S.Ct. at 2729. The fact of past discrimination agreed to in both cases constitutes a compelling need for a minority-conscious remedy. The proper test is one of reasonableness. See Morgan, et al. v. O'Bryant, et al., 671 F.2d 23, 28 (1st Cir. 1982). The orders of the district court meet the test of reasonableness. They were necessary to prevent the departments from regressing to the state of precipitous racial imbalance that prevailed at the commencement of this litigation more than ten years ago. 53 We are acutely aware that some white policemen and fire fighters who, understandably, regard the seniority system as an inalienable right and who have been innocent themselves of any discrimination will lose their jobs, at least temporarily. 15 We also must recognize that whites as a group reaped significant advantages in the past in hiring and promotion at the expense of blacks and hispanics and that a last hired, first fired seniority system perpetuates the past exclusion of minorities. This is not a case of wrong or right; it is a case of two competing rights, earned seniority versus racially balanced police and fire departments. 54 An important factor in these cases is that they involve the police and fire departments of a large metropolitan city that now has a minority population of at least 30 percent. We are concerned here not with simply redressing the rights of individuals who suffered racial discrimination; the issue is whether the progress made to date in integrating the departments will be preserved. As Judge Wyzanski noted, the public interest requires a racially balanced police force. Castro v. Beecher, 365 F.Supp. at 660. We do not need expert testimony to make the point that, unless the public safety departments of a city reflect its growing minority population, there is bound to be antagonism, hostility and strife between the citizenry and those departments. The inevitable result is poor police and fire protection for those who need it most. 55 The argument that police need more minority officers if not simply that blacks communicate better with blacks or that a police department should cater to the public's desires. Rather, it is that effective crime prevention and solution depend heavily on the public support and cooperation which result only from public respect and confidence in the police. In short, the focus is not on the superior performance of minority officers, but on the public's perception of law enforcement officials and institutions. 56 Detroit Police Officer's Ass'n v. Young, 608 F.2d 671, 696 (6th Cir. 1979). 57 It is significant that the only circuit case directly on point, Brown v. Neeb, 644 F.2d at 564, held: To the extent that the seniority system is an obstacle to the city of Toledo's duty to eliminate past discrimination the district court can set it aside. 58 We find no constitutional bar. It is now accepted that minority-conscious quotas can be used as a tool to prevent discrimination and to advance integration of the work force in hiring and promotion situations. The imposition of constructive seniority to offset the effects of a last hired, first fired system has been used with increasing frequency since Franks in Title VII cases. While the orders place a relatively greater share of the burdens of the layoffs upon nonminorities, this does not constitute reverse discrimination. The layoffs here were bound to cause undeserved injury in any event. While seniority was the normal way to decide who must go first, there is nothing magical about seniority, and here common sense suggests that it should be tempered by other entirely rational considerations so that the racial equity achieved at considerable effort in the past decade not be erased. In Bakke, not an employment case, the Supreme Court refused to enjoin the University from giving any consideration to race in its admissions process. It is a simple fact that discrimination against blacks and other minorities was long accepted and condoned in this country. To a minority police officer or fire fighter hired within the last ten years, the imposition of a rigid last hired, first fired seniority system would only mean that once again the dominant white culture had protected its own kind at the expense of blacks and hispanics. If the evil of racial discrimination is to be fought openly, we must not allow ourselves to be caught in a semantic web of aphorisms such as reverse discrimination that in the final analysis serve only to perpetuate the discrimination of the past. 59 We rule that the district court had the equitable power to modify the consent decrees, that the Massachusetts statutory last hired, first fired seniority system is not insulated from the court's orders, and that the orders are not unconstitutional. 60 Affirmed.