Opinion ID: 358571
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: affirmative hiring relief

Text: 17 Plaintiffs contend that defendants are foreclosed from challenging the constitutionality of the affirmative hiring relief ordered by the District Court. Under the doctrine of law of the case, plaintiffs assert, this issue was decided when the En banc Court rejected defendants' argument that the affirmative relief sought by plaintiffs would constitute an unconstitutional preference. The question remains whether the En banc Court, Expressly or by implication, decided this issue. 18 There is no doubt that the parties had raised the issue of whether the affirmative hiring relief sought by plaintiffs was constitutional. 8 The majority opinion of the En banc Court, per Judge Gewin, did not Expressly decide whether the affirmative hiring relief sought by plaintiffs was constitutional. The Court merely decided that the case should have been and must now be remanded for the District Court, in the first instance, to fashion an appropriate decree which will have the certain result of increasing the number of blacks on the Highway Patrol. 491 F.2d at 1055. Thereafter, the Court saw fit to adumbrate guidelines to aid the District Court on remand. 19 Beyond insuring that objective hiring criteria are utilized, it will be incumbent (up)on the District Court to order some affirmative hiring relief. It may, within the bounds of discretion, order Temporary one-to-one or one-to-two hiring, the creation of hiring pools, or a freeze on white hiring, or any other form of affirmative hiring relief until the Patrol is effectively integrated. 20 491 F.2d at 1056 (emphasis in original). To reiterate, nowhere does the Court expressly affirm the constitutionality of affirmative hiring relief; however, this issue must be deemed to have been decided Impliedly in light of Judge Clark's concurring and Judge Gee's dissenting opinions. 21 Judge Clark, in a special concurrence, noted that no court had ever adequately rationalized the constitutional infirmities inherent in requiring affirmative hiring practices and that he would have opted for a different course than the majority of the En banc Court if precedent did not compel concurrence. 491 F.2d at 1058-60 (Clark, J., concurring). Judge Gee's dissent indicated that he was unable to concur in the (majority) opinion's approval of racial hiring quotas or a freeze on white hiring as remedies appropriate for application by the district court. That they would be effective is plain. That they are constitutional . . . (is) less so. 491 F.2d at 1064 (Gee, J., dissenting). 22 Considering the issues raised by the parties and amici curiae, as well as the basis for the concurring and dissenting opinions, we must logically conclude that the En banc Court necessarily must have decided, if only by implication, that the affirmative hiring relief mandated was constitutional. That conclusion is binding on this Court as the law of the case unless any of the exceptions to the doctrine are apposite. 23 As indicated above, the doctrine of law of the case, precluding relitigation or reconsideration of issues of law previously decided, is subject to three exceptions: (1) where a subsequent trial produces substantially different evidence; (2) where controlling authority has made a contrary decision of the law applicable to such issues; and (3) where the prior decision was clearly erroneous and would work manifest injustice. White v. Murtha, 377 F.2d 428, 432 (5th Cir. 1967). See also Schwartz v. NMS Industries, Inc., 575 F.2d 553, 554-55 (5th Cir. 1978); Carpa, Inc. v. Ward Foods, Inc., 567 F.2d 1316, 1319 (5th Cir. 1978); Terrell v. Household Goods Carriers' Bureau, 494 F.2d 16, 19 (5th Cir. 1974). 24 The first and third exceptions are clearly not applicable. Hearings conducted by the District Court on remand from the En banc Court did not produce any new and substantially different evidence with respect to defendants' hiring and employment practices. The En banc decision was not clearly erroneous, but in accord with the great weight of authority. See Morrow v. Crisler, 491 F.2d 1053, 1057-58 (5th Cir. 1974) (Brown, C. J., concurring). Finally, defendants have not demonstrated that manifest injustice would result. Consequently the doctrine of law of the case compels this Court to affirm the hiring relief ordered unless a controlling authority has made a contrary decision of law on the constitutionality of affirmative hiring relief Or the District Court abused its discretion in formulating its decree. The United States Supreme Court's recent decision in Regents of the University of California v. Bakke, --- U.S. ----, 98 S.Ct. 2733, 57 L.Ed.2d 750 (1978), is not a Contrary decision of the law applicable to the issue herein raised. 25 Allan Bakke was a white male who had been denied admission to the Medical School of the University of California at Davis. Each of Bakke's two unsuccessful applications, made in 1973 and 1974, were considered under a general admissions program, a procedure separate from and coordinate to a faculty-devised special admissions program for disadvantaged and minority applicants. Bakke's benchmark score, a cumulative rating consisting of interviewers' summaries, overall and science course grade point averages, MCAT scores, letters of recommendation, extracurricular activities and other biographical data, was higher than those scores of some special candidates admitted to the medical school. The medical school admission program was challenged as a denial of Bakke's rights under the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment, Article I, section 21 of the California Constitution, and section 601 of Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, 42 U.S.C. § 2000d. Bakke alleged that the special admissions program violated his rights because it operated to exclude him from the school on the basis of race. 26 The United States Supreme Court held: (1) that race may be taken into account as a factor in an admissions program; (2) that Title VI proscribes only those racial classifications that would violate the equal protection concept inherent in the Fifth Amendment's Due Process Clause; and (3) that Allan Bakke was entitled to be admitted to the Medical School at the University of California at Davis because of the unique nature of the special admissions program conducted at that school. 9 27 Justice Powell rejected semantic distinctions in characterizing the special admissions program. Whether the program was best characterized as a racial quota or as establishing a goal of minority representation in the medical school, it was undeniably a classification based on race and ethnic background and, therefore, subject to the most exacting judicial examination. --- U.S. at ----, 98 S.Ct. at 2747-49. Justice Powell said that (t)he guarantee of equal protection cannot mean one thing when applied to one individual and something else when applied to a person of another color. If both are not accorded the same protection, then it is not equal. --- U.S. at ----, 98 S.Ct. at 2748. He continued by saying that (i)t is far too late to argue that the guarantee of equal protection to All persons permits the recognition of special wards entitled to a degree of protection greater than that accorded others. --- U.S. at ----, 98 S.Ct. at 2751 (emphasis in original, footnote omitted). 28 The medical school had contended that on several occasions the Court had approved preferential classifications without applying the most exacting scrutiny. Justice Powell emphasized that the cases cited, drawn from the areas of school desegregation, employment discrimination and sex discrimination, were materially different from the facts presented in Bakke. 29 Justice Powell found the school desegregation cases inapposite in that each involved racial classifications designed as remedies for the vindication of constitutional rights after a judicial determination of a constitutional violation. --- U.S. at ----, 98 S.Ct. at 2754. Employment discrimination cases involving racial preferences as remedies for constitutional or statutory violations were also distinguishable on that ground. See, e. g., Bridgeport Guardians, Inc. v. Civil Service Commission, 482 F.2d 1333 (2d Cir. 1973), Cert. denied, 421 U.S. 991, 95 S.Ct. 1997, 44 L.Ed.2d 481 (1975); Carter v. Gallagher, 452 F.2d 315 (8th Cir.), Modified on rehearing en banc, 452 F.2d 327 (8th Cir.), Cert. denied, 406 U.S. 950, 92 S.Ct. 2045, 32 L.Ed.2d 338 (1972). 30 Justice Powell went on to determine whether the suspect racial classification employed by the medical school could be justified by a constitutionally permissible and substantial purpose that was necessary to the accomplishment of that purpose. --- U.S. at ----, 98 S.Ct. at 2756-57. In the course of discussing the school's purpose of countering the effects of social discrimination, Justice Powell said: 31 We have never approved a classification that aids persons perceived as members of relatively victimized groups at the expense of other innocent individuals in the absence of judicial, legislative, or administrative findings of constitutional or statutory violations. . . . After such findings have been made, the governmental interest in preferring members of the injured groups at the expense of others is substantial, since the legal rights of the victims must be vindicated. In such a case, the extent of the injury and the consequent remedy will have been judicially, legislatively, or administratively defined. Also, the remedial action usually remains subject to continuing oversight to assure that it will work the least harm possible to other innocent persons competing for the benefit. Without such findings of constitutional or statutory violations, it cannot be said that the government has any greater interest in helping one individual than in refraining from harming another. Thus, the government has no compelling justification for inflicting such harm. 32 --- U.S. at ----, 98 S.Ct. at 2757-58 (citations omitted). 10 33 This approach is consistent with the Court's long-standing principle that the federal courts' equitable powers embrace decrees designed to eliminate the discriminatory effects of the past as well as bar like discrimination in the future. Louisiana v. United States, 380 U.S. 145, 154, 85 S.Ct. 817, 822, 13 L.Ed.2d 709 (1965). In exercising their remedial equitable powers federal courts may consider race. See North Carolina Board of Education v. Swann, 402 U.S. 43, 46, 91 S.Ct. 1284, 1286, 28 L.Ed.2d 586 (1971). As the Supreme Court said in Swann v. Charlotte-Mecklenburg Board of Education, 402 U.S. 1, 15, 16, 91 S.Ct. 1267, 1276, 28 L.Ed.2d 554 (1971): 34 Once a right and violation have been shown, the scope of a district court's equitable powers to remedy past wrongs is broad, for breadth and flexibility are inherent in equitable remedies. 35 The task is to correct, by balancing of the individual and collective interests, the condition that offends the Constitution. 36 As with any equity case, the nature of the violation determines the scope of the remedy. 37 A district court's remedial decree must be reasonable, feasible, workable, effective and realistic. 402 U.S. at 31, 91 S.Ct. at 1283. 38 The Bakke decision should not be viewed as a Contrary decision of law applicable to the issue of the constitutionality of affirmative hiring relief, but as a decision reaffirming the equitable power of federal courts to remedy the effects of unconstitutional acts through race-conscious means. Consequently, there being no applicable exception to the doctrine of law of the case, the En banc Court's decision in Morrow v. Crisler must be deemed the law of the case. This Court, therefore, is precluded from reconsidering the constitutionality of the relief mandated by the En banc opinion. One question remains before the District Court's affirmative hiring decree can be affirmed, and that is whether the court abused its discretion in devising the particular remedy challenged on the cross-appeal. 39