Opinion ID: 198025
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Compelling Governmental Interest in Remedying Past State Discrimination

Text: 37 The compelling-interest prong of strict scrutiny is designed to 'smoke out' illegitimate uses of race by assuring that the [government] is pursuing a goal important enough to warrant use of a highly suspect tool. Id. at 493, 109 S.Ct. 706. To date, the Supreme Court has identified only one goal sufficiently important to justify the use of affirmative action in public employment: remedying a governmental body's own past racial discrimination. See Wygant, 476 U.S. at 274, 106 S.Ct. 1842 (explaining that compelling-interest prong requires some showing of prior discrimination by the governmental unit involved). As the Court explained in Croson, [c]lassifications 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. Croson, 488 U.S. at 493, 109 S.Ct. 706. 38 To justify its remedial action, the government cannot rely on a desire to correct generalized, amorphous wrongs. See id. [V]oluntary affirmative action plans cannot be constitutionally justified absent a particularized factual predicate demonstrating the existence of 'identified discrimination.'  Cohen v. Brown Univ., 101 F.3d 155, 171 (1st Cir.1996) (citing Croson, 488 U.S. at 500-06, 109 S.Ct. 706), cert. denied, --- U.S. ----, 117 S.Ct. 1469, 137 L.Ed.2d 682 (1997). [T]he basic question ... is an evidentiary issue: Is there a  'strong basis in evidence ' for the conclusion that the [government action] here at issue serve[d] a remedial purpose with respect to past discrimination. Stuart v. Roache, 951 F.2d 446, 450 (1st Cir.1991) (quoting Croson, 488 U.S. at 500, 109 S.Ct. 706) (emphasis in original). The strong basis may consist of either a contemporaneous or antecedent finding of past discrimination by a court or other competent body, Wygant, 476 U.S. at 289, 106 S.Ct. 1842 (O'Connor, J., concurring), or evidence approaching a prima facie case of a constitutional or statutory violation. Croson, 488 U.S. at 500, 109 S.Ct. 706. 39 We think Defendants have made a sufficient showing that Ruiz's promotion served a proper remedial purpose. First, the BPD's history of racial discrimination is well-documented in the decisions of this court. In 1972, we affirmed a district court's finding that the BPD discriminated against black applicants through the use of entry-level testing procedures that favored whites. Castro v. Beecher, 459 F.2d 725 (1st Cir.1972). As we noted in Castro, that discrimination resulted in a gross racial disparity among the BPD's ranks: in 1970, only two percent of BPD officers were black or Latino; by comparison, these groups constituted 16 percent of the general population. Id., 459 F.2d at 728. 40 Nineteen years after Castro, this court in Stuart, supra, again considered the evidence of past racial discrimination within the BPD, and in particular the claims that were settled by the amended Consent Decree, and saw little evidence of progress toward remedying the discrimination cited in Castro. In Stuart, we concluded that the Consent Decree was justified by a strong basis in evidence, see 951 F.2d at 449-53, based in part on the fact that racial discrimination in entry-level hiring had adversely affected blacks' representation at the rank of sergeant, see id. at 452. [R]emedial action takes time, we reasoned, and discrimination may linger for many years in an organization that had excluded blacks from its ranks. Id. 41 The same logic dictates that the BPD's historic discrimination negatively affected the number of black lieutenants at the time of Ruiz's promotion. The documented results of that discrimination were that the BPD hired and promoted fewer blacks to sergeant than it would have absent any racial discrimination. Since the BPD selects its lieutenants solely from the ranks of sergeant, it follows that discrimination in promotions to sergeant reduced the pool of blacks eligible to compete for promotions to lieutenant. 42 The effect of prior discrimination was compounded by the fact that experience makes up twenty percent of the score assigned to a candidate for promotion--a fact that, according to both Defendants' expert and the BPD's personnel director, negatively impacts black (who were on average less experienced) candidates. Moreover, it takes years to rise through the ranks of the BPD. See id. at 452 (noting that [w]hile an officer must have served three years to apply to become a sergeant, successful applicants had served an average of seven or more years in the police force). As this court stated when last considering the MAMLEO-BPD consent decree, [o]bviously, if few blacks become police officers, few blacks will become sergeants. Id. It is just as obvious that discrimination that prevents blacks from becoming sergeants will also prevent blacks from reaching the level of lieutenant. See also United States v. Paradise, 480 U.S. 149, 168-69, 107 S.Ct. 1053, 94 L.Ed.2d 203 (1987) (plurality opinion) (Discrimination at the entry level necessarily precluded blacks from competing for promotions, and resulted in a departmental hierarchy dominated exclusively by non-minorities.... [The Department cannot] segregate the results achieved by its hiring practices and those achieved by its promotional practices.); id. at 196, 107 S.Ct. 1053 (O'Connor, J., dissenting) (agreeing with Paradise plurality that the Department's egregious history of discrimination warranted a race-based remedy). 43 Relatedly, we do not think this evidence is too temporally remote to justify the conclusion that the BPD's past racial discrimination has manifest effects in the present status of black officers. We must be wary, of course, of remedial measures that are 'ageless in their reach into the past, and timeless in their ability to affect the future.'  Cohen, 101 F.3d at 171 (quoting Wygant, 476 U.S. at 276, 106 S.Ct. 1842). The question whether past discrimination warrants current action is fact-intensive. For instance, aware that racial discrimination can have long-lasting effects, we determined in Stuart that remedial action in 1990 was justified in part by a 1981 statistical disparity. See 951 F.2d at 451-52. Moreover, in reaching the conclusion that litigated court findings of recent entry-level discrimination would seem sufficient to justify race-conscious remedies at both entry and promotional levels, id. at 452 (emphasis added), we did not say that such findings were necessary. 44 Here, the district court relied on substantial evidence that the effects of the BPD's past discrimination persisted at the rank of lieutenant until Ruiz's promotion. The BPD had no black lieutenants as recently as 1978, and only two in 1992; the 1995 promotion of three blacks, including Ruiz, more than doubled this number. Thus, in July, 1996, only five of seventy-seven lieutenants, roughly six percent, were black. By then, the number of blacks among the BPD's 269 sergeants had risen to 46, suggesting the remedial effects of the consent decree as to sergeants, but also that such effects had yet to work their way to the rank of lieutenant. 45 The BPD had further justification in 1995 for race-based action in the statistical proof of a violation of the four-fifths rule. As already noted, had the BPD promoted in strict rank order, the results would have supported an inference of discriminatory impact under the Guidelines. This statistical evidence adds to the foregoing and reinforces the BPD's conclusion that it had not yet succeeded in remedying the effects of its history of discrimination. In the first of many objections to this statistical evidence, Plaintiffs-Appellants correctly point out that a violation of the four-fifths rule, standing alone, is not conclusive evidence of discrimination. We agree with their principal objection, but we also think that the four-fifths rule can, in the words of the Supreme Court in a different context, properly serve as a benchmark against which ... to gauge [Defendants'] efforts to remedy past discrimination. Local 28, Sheet Metal Workers' Int'l Ass'n v. EEOC, 478 U.S. 421, 478, 106 S.Ct. 3019, 92 L.Ed.2d 344 (1986) (plurality opinion). Against this benchmark, the BPD's efforts at remedying the effects of past discrimination were still lacking. 46 Second, Plaintiffs point out that the 1992 exam was content-validated according to the Guidelines. It follows, they argue, that the results of a fair and unbiased exam cannot be the basis for race-based action. However, past discrimination, if sufficiently pervasive, may justify consideration of race in promotions even when candidates have taken a validated exam. As we wrote in approving such a promotional measure, validated exams are not an end in themselves but merely a means toward achieving the decree's actual objective: rough parity (to remedy the effects of past discrimination). Mackin v. City of Boston, 969 F.2d 1273, 1277 (1st Cir.1992). 47 Plaintiffs also dispute the denominator used in the BPD's four-fifths calculation, arguing that we should compare the number of blacks and whites selected for promotion to the number of each race among the forty-two candidates certified by the DPA, rather than those who made the eligible list by simply passing the test. Under that approach, the selection rate would have actually been higher among blacks (two of four) than whites (eighteen of thirty-eight). 48 [W]hen special qualifications are required to fill particular jobs, comparison to the general population (rather than to the smaller group of individuals who possess the necessary qualifications) may have little probative value. Croson, 488 U.S. at 501, 109 S.Ct. 706. We think the comparison of sergeants who passed the civil service exam to those whom the BPD promoted adequately captures the fact that the lieutenant position requires special qualifications. Certainly, nothing compels the conclusion that finishing among the top forty-two candidates is any more a qualification than earning a passing score. It is the latter criterion that determines whether a candidate can ever be selected for promotion, whether in the current or a later promotional round. 49 Finally, Plaintiffs contend that the sample of eligible employees was too small to be statistically meaningful, relying largely on Fudge v. City of Providence Fire Dep't, 766 F.2d 650 (1st Cir.1985). 4 There, we reversed a finding of Title VII liability based largely on the inadequacy of plaintiff's analysis under the four-fifths rule. Plaintiff's sole evidence of disparate impact was that only 4 percent of 24 black applicants passed the employer's entrance exam, as compared with 13 percent of 224 white applicants. We held that this evidence, standing alone, was insufficient to support a finding of Title VII liability. See id. at 657-58. We cautioned that in cases involving a narrow data base, the better approach is for the courts to require a showing that the disparity is statistically significant, or unlikely to have occurred by chance, applying basic statistical tests as the method of proof. Id. at 658. Since the sample size here was smaller than that rejected in Fudge, Plaintiffs reason that we must disregard the four-fifths rule as irrelevant. 50 We disagree because Defendants here adequately met the concerns expressed in Fudge. DPA's expert in public safety testing and promotional procedures, Dr. Frank Landy, pointed out that the Department of Justice has addressed the Guidelines' use in cases of small samples. See generally Questions and Answers on the Federal Executive Agency Guidelines on Employee Selection Procedures, 44 Fed.Reg. 11996 (1979). This commentary states that use of the four-fifths rule is inappropriate ... where the number of persons and the difference in selection rates are so small that the selection of one different person for one job would shift the result from adverse impact against one group to a situation in which that group has a higher selection rate than the other group. 44 Fed.Reg. 12000. 51 Landy applied this test to the data on the June, 1995, candidates for promotion to lieutenant, and concluded that an adverse impact would remain even if the BPD had promoted an additional (i.e., a third) African-American to lieutenant. This expert testimony--which Plaintiffs did not rebut with an expert of their own--distinguishes the instant case from Fudge. See Fudge, 766 F.2d at 658 (noting that plaintiff had failed to present expert testimony). Moreover, unlike Fudge, the promotional rates were only a small part of the overall evidence of discrimination, rendering the statistical disparity unlikely to have occurred by chance. Id.; cf. 29 C.F.R. § 1607.4(D) (noting that [s]maller differences in selection rate may nevertheless constitute adverse impact ... where a user's actions have discouraged applicants disproportionately on grounds of race). Where, as here, the sample size is small, it is both dangerous to rely too heavily on the figures and unfair to ignore them entirely. Boston Chapter, NAACP, Inc. v. Beecher, 504 F.2d 1017, 1021 n. 6 (1st Cir.1974). We believe that to find a strong basis in evidence does not, in these circumstances, necessitate placing an undue emphasis on the violation of the four-fifths rule. 52 Having reviewed the statistical evidence of present racial disparities among BPD lieutenants, and the documented history of racial discrimination in the BPD, we add a further word about the connection between the two. As we have noted, this connection is explained in part by common sense: once implemented, fair procedures for choosing low-level employees may take years to show results in the higher ranks. This is especially so in light of the difficulty the BPD had in implementing the consent decree. 53 This tortuous history, combined with the persistent effects of discriminatory practices at the entry and sergeant levels, sufficiently links the BPD's past discrimination and the statistical disparities contemporaneous with Ruiz's promotion. See Paradise, 480 U.S. at 168-70, 107 S.Ct. 1053 (plurality opinion); cf. Hopwood v. Texas, 78 F.3d 932, 952 (5th Cir.1996) (The effects must themselves be examined to see whether they were caused by the past discrimination and whether they are of a type that justifies the program.), cert. denied, 518 U.S. 1033, 116 S.Ct. 2580, 2581, 135 L.Ed.2d 1094 (1996). Given the BPD's halting and, at times, quite modest progress in remedying its earlier discrimination, we are reluctant to infer that the vestiges of that discrimination had substantially disappeared when the BPD promoted Ruiz. The evidence warranted the district court's conclusion that the 1996 statistical disparity combines with judicial findings of past entry-level discrimination by the BPD to imply convincingly that historical discrimination has affected the promotion of minority sergeants to the rank of lieutenant, and that the lingering effects of that discrimination were present in 1995 when the BPD promoted Ruiz. 54 Plaintiffs attack the district court's reliance on past findings of racial discrimination within the BPD as irrelevant in light of the BPD's subjective reliance on the consent decree. Noting the uncontested fact that Commissioner Evans promoted Ruiz based on the belief--now mistaken, it turns out--that the consent decree so required, they argue that the defenders of the challenged discrimination ... could not offer additional reasons, not relied on by Commissioner Evans, for the proposition that the BPD's discrimination was remedial. Thus, Plaintiffs reason, Ruiz's promotion is constitutionally valid only if, as Commissioner Evans initially thought, the consent decree required it; since the decree did not, the promotion cannot stand. 55 The short answer to this argument is that it draws an unnecessary, and ultimately untenable, distinction between two motives: complying with the consent decree, on the one hand, and remedying past racial discrimination, on the other. To say that Commissioner Evans promoted Ruiz in order to comply with the consent decree does not prove that he acted without regard to the goal of addressing past wrongs. In fact, the former so much implicates the latter that Commissioner Evans, who stated in his affidavit that he was concerned with avoiding adverse impact on minority candidates, was undoubtedly pursuing both goals at once. 56 Moreover, based on the statistics already described, Commissioner Evans was justified in taking some remedial action. Based on those statistics, both the DPA and MAMLEO warned Commissioner Evans that promoting lieutenants according to strict rank order would raise an inference of discrimination. Thus, the avoidance of discrimination was an objective that Commissioner Evans expressly contemplated. Accordingly, even if we adopted Plaintiffs' premise that the only motivation that matters is that subjectively possessed by the official responsible for the challenged action, that motivation--heading off a potential discrimination claim--would be lawful. See Marcantel v. Louisiana Dep't of Transp. & Dev., 37 F.3d 197, 202 (5th Cir.1994) ([A] good faith settlement of a claim of past discrimination constitutes a legitimate, nondiscriminatory reason for making employment decisions.). Indeed, given Commissioner Evans's unquestioned good-faith belief, supported by the court's ruling, that the consent decree required Ruiz's promotion, it would be odd to describe his motivation as animus or hostility toward the white Plaintiffs on the basis of their race, or an improper desire to play racial politics.