Opinion ID: 489890
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: The Legitimacy of Voluntary Affirmative Action as a Remedial Tool

Text: 21 In analyzing the validity of an affirmative action plan, the threshold issue to be addressed is the origins of that plan. In the instant case, we have before us a plan tbat was voluntarily adopted by the Department in response to a perceived need for remedial action. The voluntary nature of the Department's Plan distinguishes the instant case from those in which affirmative action is ordered by a court as a remedy for adjudicated violations of the discrimination laws. See, e.g., United States v. Paradise, --- U.S. ----, 107 S.Ct. 1053, 94 L.Ed.2d 203 (1987); Local 28 of the Sheet Metal Workers' Int'l Ass'n v. EEOC, --- U.S.----, 106 S.Ct. 3019, 92 L.Ed.2d 344 (1986). 13 22 The Supreme Court first confronted the issue of voluntary affirmative action in employment in the Weber case. Weber involved a voluntary plan negotiated by a private employer, the Kaiser Aluminum and Chemical Corporation (Kaiser), and the employees' collective bargaining representative, the United Steelworkers of America (USWA). Under the terms of the plan, fifty percent of the openings in an in-plant craft-training program were reserved for black employees. The plan was expressly designed to end when the percentage of black craftworkers in the plant was commensurate with the percentage of blacks in the local labor force. Because the plan had been adopted by a private employer, the sole issue before the Court was whether the plan was proscribed by Title VII. 23 In upholding the validity of the plan, the Court in Weber firmly rejected the argument that Title VII absolutely prohibits private employers from voluntarily adopting race-conscious affirmative action plans. Acknowledging that a literal construction of Title VII would seem to bar the consideration of race in employment decisions, the Court held that such a construction would defeat one of the principal purposes of Title VII--to abolish traditional patterns of racial segregation and hierarchy. 443 U.S. at 201-04, 99 S.Ct. at 2726-28. The Court went on to observe that Title VII was intended to spur voluntary efforts at eradicating the vestiges of segregationist practices, not to place an obstacle in the path of private employers attempting to achieve that end. Id. at 204, 99 S.Ct. at 2727. 24 Having decided that Title VII did not condemn all voluntary, race-conscious affirmative action plans, the Court stopped short of delineating the precise legal standards governing such plans. 443 U.S. at 208, 99 S.Ct. 2729. (We need not today define in detail the line of demarcation between permissible and impermissible affirmative action plans.). The Supreme Court did, however, develop an analytical framework for assessing the validity of such plans. Under that framework, a court must answer the following two questions: first, was adoption of the plan justified as a remedial measure, and, second, does the plan unnecessarily trammel the legitimate interests of nonminority employees. On the facts before it in Weber, the Court found that the need for the plan was amply demonstrated by the existence of conspicuous racial imbalances in Kaiser's almost exclusively white craftwork forces. 443 U.S. at 198, 99 S.Ct. at 2724. The Court then found that the interests of white employees were not unduly infringed by the plan because it (1) did not require the discharge of white workers; (2) did not create an absolute bar to the advancement of whites; and (3) was a temporary measure designed only to attain, not maintain, racial balance in the Kaiser work force. 443 U.S. at 208, 99 S.Ct. at 2730. 25 For many years, Weber stood as the Supreme Court's only word on voluntary affirmative action plans in the employment setting. In each of the past two Terms, however, the Court has issued an important decision outlining in somewhat greater detail the substantive legal standards applicable to such plans. 14 In the next section, we undertake a comprehensive examination of these two decisions. For present purposes, the point to be emphasized is that both Wygant and Johnson, along with the intervening decision in City of Cleveland, see note 14 supra, clearly reaffirm the principle that voluntary affirmative action is a legitimate remedial tool available to both public and private employers. 26 Wygant involved a voluntary plan that was contained in a collective bargaining agreement between a public school and a teachers union. Under the terms of the plan, the public school was authorized to lay off nonminority teachers before minority teachers with less seniority. A sharply divided court 15 struck down the plan under the equal protection clause of the Fourteenth Amendment, both because it was predicated on a vague notion of societal discrimination, and because the layoff provision unnecessarily trammeled the interests of nonminority employees. However, as Justice O'Connor highlighted in her separate concurring statement, the Court was clearly of the view that affirmative action was a legitimate means by which public employers could remedy past discrimination in the work place: 27 Ultimately, the Court is at least in accord in believing that a public employer, consistent with the Constitution, may undertake an affirmative action program which is designed to further a legitimate remedial purpose and which implements that purpose by means that do not impose disproportionate harm on the interests, or unnecessarily trammel the rights, of innocent individuals directly and adversely affected by a plan's racial preference. 28 106 S.Ct. at 1853-54 (O'Connor, J., concurring in part and concurring in the judgment); see also id. at 1850 (plurality opinion) (We have recognized ... that in order to remedy the effects of prior discrimination, it may be necessary to take race into account.); id. at 1861 (Marshall, J., dissenting) ([W]hile racial distinctions are irrelevant to nearly all legitimate state objectives and are properly subjected to the most rigorous judicial scrutiny in most instances, they are highly relevant to the one legitimate state objective of eliminating the pernicious vestiges of past discrimination.). 29 Almost one year later, in Johnson, the Court again took the opportunity to examine an affirmative action plan voluntarily adopted by a public employer. Johnson involved a male plaintiff passed over for promotion based on the considerations outlined in the employer's plan. Because the plaintiff did not raise an equal protection claim in the trial court, the Supreme Court considered only the validity of the plan under Title VII. See 107 S.Ct. at 1446 n. 2. 30 The plan analyzed in Johnson was virtually identical to the plan at issue in the instant case. The plan identified the imbalances in the agency's work force, and stated that the agency's long-term goal was to attain a work force whose composition reflected the proportion of minorities and women in the area labor force. 107 S.Ct. at 1446-47. As here, the plan acknowledged that a number of factors might preclude the agency from achieving its long-term goal. However, the plan committed the agency to making short-term employment decisions with an eye towards achieving that goal. In short, the plan authorized the consideration of ethnicity or sex as a factor when evaluating qualified candidates for jobs in which members of such groups were poorly represented. Id. at 1447 (emphasis added). As here, the plan did not set aside a specific number of positions for minorities or women. Id. 31 The Court prefaced its discussion of the agency's plan by reaffirming its conclusion in Weber that voluntary affirmative action can play a crucial role in furthering Title VII's purpose of eliminating the effects of discrimination in the workplace, and that Title VII should not be read to thwart such efforts. 107 S.Ct. at 1451. The Court then turned--as we do now--to the legal constraints imposed upon employers who choose to adopt an affirmative action plan.B. The Legal Criteria Against Which Voluntary Affirmative Action Plans are Measured 32 In Wygant and Johnson, the Supreme Court retained and built upon the analytical framework introduced in Weber. Together, the two cases firmly establish that, in the employment context, under both Title VII and the Constitution, the validity of an affirmative action plan must be judged by two factors. First, the court must examine whether there was an adequate factual predicate justifying the use of affirmative action. If the court finds that remedial efforts were justified, it must then decide whether the employer's plan unnecessarily trammels the legitimate interests of nonminority or male employees. Under both Title VII and the Constitution, the burden is on the plaintiff to establish the invalidity of the plan. Johnson, 107 S.Ct. at 1449; Wygant, 106 S.Ct. at 1848. 33
34 Jumping ahead to the second prong of the test, it is clear from Wygant and Johnson that several factors are relevant in determining whether a plan unnecessarily trammels any legitimate interests of nonminority or male employees. Conceptually, there appears to be no reason why these factors should differ depending on whether the plan is analyzed under Title VII or the Constitution; if some affirmative action remedy is warranted, but the chosen remedy is unnecessarily burdensome, a less intrusive remedy would be required under both the statute and the Constitution. And, in fact, our examination of Wygant and Johnson suggests that the Supreme Court's analysis under the second prong of the test does not vary in these contexts. 35 As the Court made abundantly clear in both cases, the type of preferential remedy chosen by the employer is critical in determining whether the plan is unduly burdensome. In Wygant, the plurality balked at a preferential layoff scheme, finding that less intrusive means of accomplishing a similar remedial purpose--such as hiring goals--were available: 36 In cases involving valid hiring goals, the burden to be borne by innocent individuals is diffused to a considerable extent among society generally. Though hiring goals may burden some innocent individuals, they simply do not impose the same kind of injury that layoffs impose. Denial of a future employment opportunity is not as intrusive as loss of an existing job. 37 106 S.Ct. at 1851 (emphasis in opinion). 38 In Johnson, the Court applied a similar analysis in finding that a preferential promotion awarded to a qualified woman did not unnecessarily trammel any legitimate interests of the male plaintiff: 39 [P]etitioner had no absolute entitlement to the road dispatcher position. Seven of the applicants were classified as qualified and eligible, and the Agency Director was authorized to promote any one of the seven. Thus, denial of the promotion unsettled no legitimate firmly rooted expectation on the part of the petitioner. Furthermore, while the petitioner in this case was denied a promotion, he retained his employment with the Agency, at the same salary and with the same seniority, and remained eligible for other promotions. 40 107 S.Ct. at 1455-56 (footnote omitted). 41 As the above discussion illustrates, a related consideration under both Wygant and Johnson is whether the female or minority applicant who receives preferential treatment under the plan is qualified to be hired or promoted. If a nonminority or male employee loses out on an available job or promotion in favor of another qualified candidate, he or she has in a very real sense suffered a less severe injury than if passed over in favor of an unqualified candidate. Of course, in both cases the loss of the employment opportunity is the same. However, the legitimate expectations of the applicant are necessarily higher in the latter case, since a qualified candidate usually can legitimately expect to be chosen over an unqualified candidate. Where several candidates are qualified, such expectations are necessarily lower, regardless of the fact that an employer's rating system may somehow deem one candidate more qualified than the next. 42 Indeed, these points regarding legitimate expectations plainly underlie the Court's decision in Johnson, where the male employee was ranked higher than the competing female job applicant, but the affirmative action taken in favor of the woman was upheld, in part because she was found qualified to perform the job. Another example is seen in Weber, where the white male plaintiff was found to have no entitlement to participate in the newly-created apprenticeship program--in terms of proven qualifications, lawful seniority, or current occupancy in the job--superior to the entitlement of minority candidates selected pursuant to the affirmative action plan. The obvious point, of course, is that the expectations of nonminority candidates do not become legitimate merely upon assertion. 43 In view of these common-sense distinctions, the Court is prepared to sanction--under both Title VII and the Constitution--voluntary plans that authorize employers to treat race or sex as a plus factor in choosing among otherwise qualified applicants. See Johnson, 107 S.Ct. at 1455 (relying on the constitutional analysis employed by Justice Powell in Regents of the University of California v. Bakke, 438 U.S. 265, 316-19, 98 S.Ct. 2733, 2761-63, 57 L.Ed.2d 750 (1978)). What the Court is clearly not prepared to sanction is a plan that completely forecloses employment opportunities to nonminority or male candidates. See Johnson, 107 S.Ct. at 1455; Weber, 443 U.S. at 208, 99 S.Ct. at 2729. 44 Finally, in assessing whether a voluntary plan unnecessarily trammels any legitimate interests of nonminority or male employees, a court must consider the nature of the plan's objectives. A plan will be considered unduly burdensome if its long-term goal is to create proportional representation in the work force and freeze that representation in perpetuity. Such a long-term objective is tantamount to establishing a fixed-quota system, which is plainly impermissible. See Johnson, 107 S.Ct. at 1456 (the Agency does not seek to use its Plan to maintain a permanent racial and sexual balance). However, an employer may voluntarily adopt a plan the long-term goal of which is to attain a balanced work force, not to maintain one. Id. (emphasis in opinion). This more modest goal is permissible because it does not serve to institutionalize the consideration of race or sex; rather, it serves merely as a benchmark against which the employer may measure its progress in eliminating the underrepresentation of minorities and women. Id. 45 The requirement that plans not seek to establish permanent quotas is simply a restatement of the Supreme Court's holding in Weber that voluntary plans must be temporary. Johnson makes clear, however, that the plan itself need not identify an explicit termination point, unless, as was the case in Weber, it sets aside positions according to specific numbers. Johnson, 107 S.Ct. at 1456. If the plan merely authorizes the consideration of race or sex as a plus factor, and limits its long-term goal to the achievement (rather than the maintenance) of racial or sexual balance, it will be considered sufficiently temporary.
46 Although application of the second prong of the test (involving consideration of any legitimate interests of nonminority candidates) does not appear to vary in the statutory and constitutional contexts (indeed, the Supreme Court's analysis of the second prong in Johnson borrowed heavily from its constitutional jurisprudence, see id. at 1455; cf. Wygant, 106 S.Ct. at 1846, 1849-52 (plurality opinion)), the Court explicitly stated in Johnson that the Constitution imposes greater constraints on voluntary affirmative action plans than does Title VII. See 107 S.Ct. at 1449-50 n. 6, 1452. It necessarily follows, then, that the Constitution is more demanding in the application of the first prong of the test, under which a court must determine whether the employer had a sufficient factual predicate for adopting a voluntary plan. And, indeed, a comparison of Johnson and Wygant reveals that the critical distinction between the statutory and constitutional standards lies in the quantum of evidence needed to demonstrate that the plan was adopted for a remedial purpose. 47 Under Johnson, the relevant inquiry is whether there existed a  'manifest imbalance'  in  'traditionally segregated job categories.'  Id. at 1452 (quoting Weber, 443 U.S. at 197, 99 S.Ct. at 2724). Under Wygant, by contrast, the test is whether the employer had a strong basis in evidence for concluding that affirmative action was necessary to remedy the present effects of prior discrimination in the work place. 106 S.Ct. at 1848 (plurality opinion). 16 Whether the employer had the requisite strong basis is a factual determination to be made by the trial court. Id. The factual findings undergirding this determination must be respected unless clearly erroneous. See, e.g., Pullman-Standard v. Swint, 456 U.S. 273, 287, 102 S.Ct. 1781, 1789, 72 L.Ed.2d 66 (1982). 48 Unfortunately, the plurality in Wygant did not enumerate the factors that a court should consider in determining whether an employer had a strong basis for believing that remedial action was required. This is in contrast to Johnson, which explicitly instructs trial courts to focus on the existence of statistical imbalances. See 107 S.Ct. at 1452. The two decisions read together, however, do provide some useful insights into the application of the strong basis requirement. 49 The only Justice who has expressed a view on the nature of the evidence required to establish a strong basis is Justice O'Connor. Writing separately in both Johnson and Wygant, Justice O'Connor opined that the strong (or firm) basis test would be satisfied by evidence of a statistical disparity sufficient to support a prima facie claim of discrimination under Title VII. 17 See Johnson, 107 S.Ct. at 1461 (O'Connor, J., concurring in the judgment); Wygant, 106 S.Ct. at 1856 (O'Connor, J., concurring in part and concurring in the judgment). Importantly, however, the five Justices who formed the majority in Johnson --Justices Brennan, Marshall, Blackmun, Powell and Stevens--have never required as much as a prima facie case to justify efforts at voluntary affirmative action, either under Title VII or the Constitution. Indeed, not even the plurality opinion in Wygant suggests that there must be a prima facie case in order to justify voluntary affirmative action. Thus, it must be assumed that strong basis is something less than a prima facie case. 50 Even if the Court were to require a prima facie case, however, it is clear that a gross statistical disparity alone could satisfy the constitutional requirement of a remedial purpose, as articulated in Wygant. See Hazelwood School Dist. v. United States, 433 U.S. 299, 307-08, 97 S.Ct. 2736, 2741, 53 L.Ed.2d 768 (1977) (gross statistical disparities ... alone may in a proper case constitute prima facie proof of a pattern or practice of discrimination). Indeed, in her separate concurring opinion in Johnson, Justice O'Connor concluded that the glaring statistical imbalance in the agency's work force, standing alone, was sufficient to make out a prima facie case of employment discrimination against women. Accordingly, she found that the agency had adopted its plan based on sufficient evidence that remedial action was warranted. Of course, in any case, evidence of actual discriminatory practices engaged in by the public employer in the past also will be highly relevant to the determination of whether the employer had a strong basis for believing that remedial action was justified. 51 C. Application of the Law of Voluntary Affirmative Action to the Facts of the Instant Case 52 In this section, we apply the law governing voluntary affirmative action plans, as explicated by the Supreme Court in Weber, Wygant and Johnson, to the facts as found by the District Court. We conclude that the Department's Plan is clearly valid under Title VII, but that further factual findings are necessary with regard to the constitutional claims alleged in the appellants' complaints. 1. Title VII 53 Under the guidelines established by the Supreme Court in Weber, and refined by the Court in Johnson, we find that the appellants have failed in their burden to establish the invalidity of the Department's Plan. Accordingly, we affirm that portion of the District Court's judgment dismissing the appellants' Title VII claims. 54 Under the first prong of the Court's two-part test, we must inquire into whether the plan was justified by the existence of a manifest imbalance in traditionally segregated job categories. On the facts as found by the District Court, this part of the test is satisfied. As outlined earlier, the trial court, in upholding the validity of the Department's Plan, explicitly relied on unchallenged evidence in the record that, at the time of the Plan's adoption, there existed a manifest racial and sexual imbalance in the higher-level positions within the Department. Specifically, women held only 6 of 807 positions at or above the rank of Sergeant, and blacks held only 174 of these positions. When measured against the percentage of women and blacks in the area labor market, these figures plainly demonstrate a manifest imbalance in the Department's higher-level positions, justifying some effort at voluntary affirmative action. 18 Cf. Johnson, 107 S.Ct. at 1446, 1453 (while women comprised 36.4% of the area labor market, they made up only 7.1% of the agency officials and administrators, 8.6% of the professionals, 9.7% of the technicians and 22% of the service and maintenance workers; by contrast, they constituted 76% of the office and clerical workers). The figures likewise demonstrate a manifest racial and sexual imbalance in the Sergeant position, see note 12 supra, which is of comparable rank to the position of Detective Grade I. 55 The appellants vaguely suggest in their brief that there appears to be no manifest racial imbalance if the number of blacks in the Department's higher-level positions are compared with those blacks in the labor force who possess the qualifications for those positions. However, even assuming that this were the appropriate statistical data against which the Department's Plan should be judged, see note 22 infra, the appellants failed at trial to introduce any data that purports to identify those in the District of Columbia labor force who possess the requisite qualifications. Because the ultimate burden of proof in a Title VII case is on the plaintiff, see, e.g., Johnson, 107 S.Ct. at 1449; McDonnell Douglas Corp. v. Green, 411 U.S. 792, 93 S.Ct. 1817, 36 L.Ed.2d 668 (1973), the appellants' unsupported contention must fail. 19 56 Once it has determined that the voluntary plan was adopted for a valid remedial purpose, a court must next consider whether the plan unnecessarily trammels any legitimate interests of nonminority or male employees. Here again, the Department's Plan passes muster. The Plan does not transgress any of the prohibitions on voluntary plans outlined earlier; specifically, it does not call for the displacement or layoff of nonminority or male employees; it does not totally exclude such employees from promotional opportunities; it does not authorize the promotion of unqualified blacks and women; and it does not seek to establish in perpetuity a work force whose racial or sexual composition mirrors that of the area labor force. In fact, the Plan is virtually identical to the one approved by the Court in Johnson; it simply authorizes the consideration of race or sex as one factor in choosing among qualified employees, with the long-term goal set as the achievement (rather than the maintenance) of racial and sexual balance in the work force. See Exhibit 9 to Motion of Defendants to Dismiss the Complaints or, in the Alternative, for Summary Judgment (The objective of this Plan is to direct this Department toward total equality in employment in its work force.) (emphasis added). Pursuant to the Plan, the Department afforded racial and sexual preferences to qualified applicants for promotion to the Detective Grade I position. This was well within the limits of Title VII, as articulated by the Supreme Court in Weber and Johnson. 2. The Constitution 57 Because the District Court had the benefit of Weber at the time of its decision, it made factual findings necessary to the application of Title VII. As we held in the previous section, these findings are adequate, under both Weber and Johnson, to uphold the validity of the Department's Plan under Title VII. However, the trial court did not have the benefit of Wygant when it undertook to examine the validity of the Plan. As a consequence, it did not make factual findings geared to the legal question whether the Plan is permissible under the Constitution. We must therefore remand for further findings because the Supreme Court has made it absolutely clear that the requisite findings in an employment discrimination suit are to be made by the trial court, not the court of appeals. See Lehman v. Trout, 465 U.S. 1056, 104 S.Ct. 1404, 79 L.Ed.2d 732 (1984) (mem.); Pullman-Standard, 456 U.S. at 292, 102 S.Ct. at 1792. 58 On remand, the trial court should make the critical factual determination demanded by Wygant; namely, whether the Department had a strong basis in evidence for believing that affirmative action was necessary to remedy the present effects of past discrimination within the Department. The trial court may base this factual determination on evidence already in the record, or, if necessary, it may reopen the record for the introduction of additional evidence. The court need not revisit the issue whether the Plan unnecessarily trammels any legitimate interests of nonminority and male employees, since this second prong of the constitutional test is coextensive with the second prong of the statutory test, and we have already held that the Department's Plan did not transgress any of the statutory limitations on the scope of voluntary plans. 59 Because the Supreme Court has not yet had occasion to review an application of the strong basis test, 20 we are somewhat hampered in our ability to provide legal guidance to the trial court concerning what specific factors it should consider on remand. However, this much is clear from Johnson and Wygant. Because the constitutional standard is somewhat stricter than the statutory standard, a strong basis in evidence must be something more than a manifest imbalance in traditionally segregated job categories. It would appear that this something more may be a greater quantum of statistical evidence, evidence of prior discriminatory practices, or some combination of the two. Beyond this, we leave the necessary factual determination to the trial court in the first instance. 21