Opinion ID: 382939
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: jurisdiction

Text: 7 We agree with the court below that Title VI enforcement procedures apply to the Board's teacher hiring and assignment practices and that HEW therefore had jurisdiction to investigate and seek compliance. Appellants rely upon section 604 of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, 42 U.S.C. § 2000d-3, the section which authorizes administrative action under Title VI with respect to employment practices only when a primary objective of federal funding is to provide employment. 8 Their argument is similar to the one advanced in 1978 by appellants in Caulfield I, 583 F.2d at 610-11. There the argument was made to oppose the collecting of statistics regarding the ethnic and racial composition of the teaching staff. We found, however, that OCR's charging letter to the Board of November 9, 1976, specifically noted that its concern with discriminatory employment practices was motivated by the unfortunate effect that these practices exercise on minority schoolchildren. Id. at 611. Accordingly, we held that OCR's investigation was within the bounds of 42 U.S.C. § 2000d, which outlaws discrimination in federally funded programs, and not 42 U.S.C. § 2000d-3, because the objective of OCR's investigation was to alleviate discrimination against minority schoolchildren and not against minority teachers as such. 583 F.2d at 611. We see no reason to depart from our holding in that case. Indeed, we are bound by it, but even if we were not, we would agree with the Fifth Circuit decision in United States v. Jefferson County Board of Education, 372 F.2d 836, 882-86 (5th Cir. 1966) (Wisdom, J.), aff'd en banc, 380 F.2d 385 (5th Cir.) (per curiam), cert. denied, 389 U.S. 840, 88 S.Ct. 67, 19 L.Ed.2d 103 (1967), that section 2000d-3 does not bar an action requiring desegregation of school faculty and that faculty integration is essential to student integration. See also Marable v. Alabama Mental Health Board, 297 F.Supp. 291, 297-98 (M.D.Ala.1969) (three-judge court) (Johnson, J.). 8 Appellants also argue that HEW lacked jurisdiction under Title IX to investigate the school system's employment practices. Again, we agree with the lower court that the government could reasonably proceed on the theory that a school system's discrimination against women in access to supervisory positions would have a discriminatory effect on students, the direct beneficiaries of the federal aid. See Islesboro School Committee v. Califano, 593 F.2d 424, 430 (1st Cir. 1979), cert. denied, 444 U.S. 972, 100 S.Ct. 467, 62 L.Ed.2d 387 (1980). Teacher Assignment 9 The author of this opinion would be content to affirm the holding concerning the validity of the Memorandum on the same ground relied on by Judge Weinstein below, viz., that the affirmative remedies required under the Memorandum of understanding were reasonable in light of the parties' reasonable belief that the practices at issue might result in liability under Titles VI and IX and under the Constitution. As early as 1958 a New York state court found that teacher assignment practices were racially discriminatory and that such practices had a discriminatory effect on students. In re Skipwith, 14 Misc.2d 325, 180 N.Y.S.2d 852 (Dom.Rel.Ct.1958). As the district court in the present case noted, since 1951 virtually every commission, agency and consulting firm reviewing the Board of Examiners' system of competitive examinations for teachers has called for its substantial reform or abolition. ... A chief reason for this criticism has been that the system tended to discourage minority teachers from applying and to screen them out. In Caulfield I we discussed OCR's and the Board's own findings concerning the denial of full access to employment opportunity to minority teachers, the creation and reinforcement of racial identifiability of schools by the placement of teachers, and the assignment of minority teachers with less experience, lower salaries and fewer advanced degrees to predominantly minority schools. See 583 F.2d at 608-09 & nn.3 & 5. 10 In upholding the validity of the Memorandum, the district court compared this voluntary agreement to remedy possible Title VI and Title IX violations to the voluntary agreement to remedy possible Title VII violations upheld in United Steelworkers of America v. Weber, 443 U.S. 193, 99 S.Ct. 2721, 61 L.Ed.2d 480 (1979). The argument for upholding a voluntary affirmative action plan is even stronger in this case than it was in the Weber case, for here HEW itself initiated the investigation and notified the Board of alleged Title VI and Title IX violations. Cf. Weber, 443 U.S. at 204, 99 S.Ct. at 2728 (Title VII does not prohibit private parties from voluntarily taking steps to comply with Title VII); Regents of the University of California v. Bakke, 438 U.S. 265, 301-02 & n.41, 98 S.Ct. 2733, 2755-56 & n.41, 57 L.Ed.2d 750 (1978) (Powell, J.) (racial preferences may be upheld against constitutional attack when based on findings by administrative body charged with monitoring compliance with antidiscrimination statutes). In fact, both Title VI and Title IX require the government to seek voluntary compliance before terminating funds or taking other steps to enforce compliance. See 42 U.S.C. § 2000d-1; 20 U.S.C. § 1682. Under the circumstances of this case, I agree with the district court that the voluntary agreement between OCR and the Board, though possibly affecting the interests of teachers and others who did not participate in its formulation, is a reasonable and valid effort by the Board to comply with Titles VI and IX. 11 My colleagues, however, rest their decision on a different ground and do not reach the question that the court below and I consider. Their view is that the case in its present posture does not contain an allegation that any individual's liberty or privacy interests have been invaded by state action. They recognize that Mr. Justice Powell's determinative opinion in Regents of the University of California v. Bakke, 438 U.S. 265, 98 S.Ct. 2733, 57 L.Ed.2d 750 (1978), requires that every person has a right to treatment as an individual, free from the adverse consequences of race- or sex-conscious remedies unless there has been a prior administrative, legislative or judicial determination of intentional discrimination against the particular group to be benefitted by the affirmative action plan. Of course, no such finding has been made in the present case. 12 The absence of such a finding, however, does not invalidate the Memorandum. Although teachers do have cognizable interest in avoiding transfer within the system from one school to another, Rodriguez v. Board of Education, 620 F.2d 362 (2d Cir. 1980), the teachers' interest is a limited one. Under Rodriguez, the teachers have an interest, under Title VII, in being free from transfers that constitute a serious professional setback and that are made for improper reasons such as sex discrimination. See Id. at 365-66. To be sure, the Rodriguez court identified the right involved as a statutory one, Bakke requires a finding of discrimination before any state action invading a liberty or privacy interest of an individual, from whatever source derived. 13 There is no reason to think, my colleagues' position continues, that transfers traceable to the OCR-Board Memorandum of Understanding will in any particular case constitute a serious professional setback. Until an individual teacher alleges such harm, there is nothing, in their view, to trigger Bakke's requirement of prior findings of discrimination. The simple expectation of being assigned to a particular school within the system is not, then, a right protected under Title VI, Title IX or the Constitution. Hiring Goals 14 Appellant Caulfield alone challenges paragraph 6 of the Memorandum. That paragraph has two components, the first requiring the Board to perform a study of the relevant qualified labor pool by race, ethnicity and sex, and the second requiring the Board, through the adoption and implementation of affirmative action procedures, the support and sponsorship of legislation described in paragraph 4 of the Memorandum and other efforts to achieve levels of minority participation in the teaching and supervisory service within a range representative of the racial and ethnic composition of the relevant qualified labor pool. 15 We agree with the district court that HEW did have authority to require a census of the labor pool for the same reason, discussed above, that it had authority to investigate and seek compliance. Caulfield argues that paragraph 6 requires the Board to hire on the basis of a racial quota. He contends that this is improper when there has been no finding of an intention to discriminate. However, any claim that the Board will use race as a factor in its hiring decisions is, on this record, purely conjectural and therefore does not amount to a case or controversy under article III of the Constitution. No teacher has alleged that the Memorandum has affected the consideration of his job application. Appellant has not demonstrated, as he must, that the threatened injury of which he complains is real and immediate; rather, it is conjectural and hypothetical. See O'Shea v. Littleton, 414 U.S. 488, 494, 94 S.Ct. 669, 675, 38 L.Ed.2d 674 (1974); Golden v. Zwickler, 394 U.S. 103, 108-10, 89 S.Ct. 956, 959-60, 22 L.Ed.2d 113 (1969). Indeed until the Board completes a labor pool study that is acceptable to OCR, the extent of the Board's obligations will not begin to be determined. Appellants themselves have argued that the Board's teaching corps is already within a range representative of the qualified labor pool. If this is true, the Board will not be required to take any action under paragraph 6, much less the kind of race-conscious hiring that Caulfield challenges. Because the court may not entertain purely hypothetical cases, Caulfield's challenge must be dismissed. 16 Judgment affirmed.