Opinion ID: 780155
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: eliminating imbalance

Text: 60 To the extent there is a problem in this case, it does not lie in the University's failure to include white male faculty in its adjustment pool. Rather, it centers on the scope of the adjustments that were actually made to minority and female faculty salaries, not, as Rudebusch argues, those that should have been made to the salaries of non-minority males. 61 Remedial action is valid under Title VII only if it is designed to eliminate a manifest racial [or gender-based] imbalance. Weber, 443 U.S. at 208, 99 S.Ct. 2721. Implicit in this requirement is an inquiry whether the University may have impermissibly gone beyond attain[ing] a balance in making its adjustments. See Johnson, 480 U.S. at 639, 107 S.Ct. 1442. Because the district court did not distinguish this factor from its general analysis of the unnecessary trammels prong in its grant of partial summary judgment, we address it here separately. 62 The University does not dispute Rudebusch's assertion that over half of its white male faculty were making less than the predicted salary of a similarly situated white male as calculated by the 1993 Chambers study. As the district court noted, the predicted salary represented the mean salary of white male professors in any given grouping. Such is the law of averages: some will be above the mean and some will be below. Such is also the reality of the teaching profession: even those faculty with the same rank, experience, and discipline will often find themselves being compensated at different levels. 63 Just as these realities of averages and the profession would not necessarily justify pay adjustments for those white male faculty falling below predicted levels, the use of the mean predicted salary as a baseline for the pay adjustments given to minority and female faculty — even when a manifest imbalance otherwise exists — raises legitimate questions about the scope of the adjustments made. 64 Thus, the real question is not whether Rudebusch should have been brought up to the mean, but whether using the predicted salary of similarly situated white male faculty for the minority and female adjustments somehow overcompensated these minority and women faculty members, i.e., whether the adjustments were more than remedial. This is a question the jury did not answer but instead was subsumed in the summary judgment ruling on the unnecessarily trammeled issue. 65 It could be argued, as Rudebusch does, that the adjustments were more than remedial because the Chambers study was based on disparities as measured by the mean salary of comparable white male faculty. On the other hand, there was evidence of overall disparities of over $8,000 for women and $6,700 for minorities. Looking at these figures, the adjustments actually made — which were much lower — could arguably represent a moderate, gradual approach to eliminating the imbalance.... Johnson, 480 U.S. at 640, 107 S.Ct. 1442. Indeed, the Gantz/Miller study upon which Rudebusch so heavily relies suggests that the adjustments which were actually made were so small as to be statistically insignificant — even when rank, experience, and discipline are taken into account. Then again, it is not clear whether the jury relied upon figures of overall disparity or some lesser figure when concluding that a manifest imbalance existed. Which is all to say that we cannot determine as a matter of law whether the range of adjustments made, however crude they may have been, fall within the range of moderate increases necessary to eliminate the imbalance. Because this is ultimately a disputed factual issue, it cannot be resolved on summary judgment, and we remand to the district court with instructions that a fact finder determine whether these adjustments were designed to attain a balance.