Opinion ID: 2470930
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: What Is a Strong Basis in Evidence?

Text: It is not immediately obvious from Ricci what constitutes a strong basis in evidence in the Title VII disparate-impact context. The standard is new in this context, and the Supreme Court has not yet had occasion to describe its operations in detail, for in Ricci the court held that the standard had manifestly not been satisfied. See 129 S.Ct. at 2681 ([T]here is no evidencelet alone the required strong basis in evidencethat the tests were flawed because they were not job-related or because other, equally valid and less discriminatory tests were available to the City.). Our task, therefore, is to provide, as best we can, some guidance for the district court in applying the Ricci strong-basis-in-evidence test to the facts of this case.
Some of the general contours of the strong-basis-in-evidence standard are evident from Ricci. First, the standard is objective, not subjective, and it therefore focuses on the strength of the evidence of liability, not the strength of the employer's fear of litigation. See id. at 2675 (stating that [a] mere good-faith fear of disparate-impact liability is inadequate); id. at 2677 (referring to an objective, strong basis in evidence); id. at 2681 (Fear of litigation alone cannot justify an employer's reliance on race....). Second, the strength of the evidence of disparate-impact liability is measured at the time the employer took the race- or gender-based action. In examining the evidence marshaled by New Haven, the Ricci Court considered only what the city knew at the time it made its decision, and not any further information that arose afterwards. See id. at 2678-81. Similarly, the Court generally referred to the absence of a strong basis in evidence in the past tense. E.g., id. at 2681 (On the record before us, there is no genuine dispute that the City lacked a strong basis in evidence to believe it would face disparate-impact liability if it certified the examination results.). The rationale underlying Ricci, moreover, confirms that the evidence is to be gauged at the time of the race- or sex-conscious employer action. The strong-basis-in-evidence standard is intended to strike[ ] a ... balance between the Title VII provisions concerning disparate treatment and disparate impact, so that employers make the right decisions in the first place. Id. at 2675. Thus, Ricci seeks to avoid both creating a legal framework under which employers likely would hesitate before taking voluntary action for fear of later being proven wrong in the course of litigation and then held to account for disparate treatment, and one under which employers would undertake race- [or gender-]based action at the slightest hint of disparate impact. See id. at 2674-75. If evidence from after the employer's race- or gender-based decision were taken into account, there would be false negatives and false positives. Some employers might take inappropriate race- or gender-based actions in the hope or expectation that a strong basis in evidence would later emerge; other employers who actually do have a strong basis in evidence might refuse to take voluntary action for fear that later evidence would undermine that basis. Moreover, still other employers would be held liable for disparate treatment or for disparate impact even though based on the evidence of disparate impact then before them, they acted correctly at the time they made their decisions. All such results are inimical to Ricci. [47] Third, either an actual prima facie case of disparate-impact liability is required, or a strong basis in evidence of a prima facie case is required. Ricci does not say which, as the City of New Haven was faced with an undisputed prima facie case of disparate impact. Id. at 2677-78. Nevertheless, because Ricci explicitly rejects the proposition that an employer in fact must be in violation of the disparate-impact provision before it can use compliance as a defense in a disparate-treatment suit, it seems likely that no more than a strong basis in evidence that a prima facie case exists would suffice. [48] Id. at 2674. If an actual prima facie case were required, then an employer who used an employment practice that was obviously not job-related and who was faced with a strong basis in evidence, but not an actual prima facie case, of disparate impact, likely would hesitate before taking voluntary action for fear of later being proven wrong in the course of litigation and then held to account for disparate treatment. Id. But we decline to decide this issue here, leaving it to be determined by the district court in the first instance, if it proves to be necessary to deciding the case. Fourth, because of the objective nature of the strong-basis-in-evidence test and its focus on the likelihood of actual liability, the test requires that the employer have a strong basis in evidence either (1) that its challenged employment procedures are not job-related, or (2) that there was a less discriminatory alternative procedure which the employer refused to adopt. These are, as the Ricci Court explained, the two conditions under which an employer can be liable for disparate impact after a plaintiff has shown a prima facie case of disparate impact. See Ricci, 129 S.Ct. at 2678. [49] A somewhat more difficult question is just how strong the evidence of non-job-relatedness or a less discriminatory alternative must be. Two boundaries are clear from the Ricci Court's opinion. The evidence of liability certainly must be stronger than the evidence New Haven presented in Ricci. Summary judgment against the city could not there be avoided with what was described as no evidence, 129 S.Ct. at 2681, or, at most, a few stray (and contradictory) statements in the record, id. at 2680. At the other end, a strong basis in evidence that an employer will be liable for disparate impact must be less than what is required to prove a disparate-impact violation (and hence than what is needed to prove non-job-relatedness or the existence of a less discriminatory alternative). The strong-basis-in-evidence standard, Ricci says, is not so restrictive that it allows employers to act only when there is a provable, actual violation. Id. at 2676. The strong-basis-in-evidence test does not, therefore, require that there be a preponderance of the evidence of an actual disparate impact violation. We think Ricci suggests that a strong basis in evidence is a balanced standard that falls somewhere in the middle between these upper and lower extremes. In borrowing the strong-basis-in-evidence standard from a line of Equal Protection cases, the Ricci Court stated that those cases recognized the tension between eliminating segregation and discrimination on the one hand and doing away with all governmentally imposed discrimination based on race on the other. Id. at 2675. Balancing those two goals requires evidentiary support for the conclusion that remedial action is warranted, id. (quoting Wygant v. Jackson Bd. of Educ., 476 U.S. 267, 277, 106 S.Ct. 1842, 90 L.Ed.2d 260 (1986) (plurality opinion)) (modification omitted), and not just an amorphous claim that there has been past discrimination, id. (quoting City of Richmond v. J.A. Croson Co., 488 U.S. 469, 499, 109 S.Ct. 706, 102 L.Ed.2d 854 (1989)). Nevertheless, and notably, a strong basis in evidence for purposes of Ricci and Title VII is not necessarily the same as it is for Equal Protection Clause purposes. Id. at 2676. While in the equal protection context a strong basis in evidence has been described as sufficient evidence to justify the conclusion that there has been prior discrimination, Wygant, 476 U.S. at 277, 106 S.Ct. 1842 (plurality opinion), Ricci, instead, explicitly does not require that an employer show that there has been a past disparate-impact violation of Title VII. Additionally, the Equal Protection Clause does not prohibit the government from taking actions which have an unintentional disparate impact, see Washington v. Davis, 426 U.S. 229, 96 S.Ct. 2040, 48 L.Ed.2d 597 (1976), and the type of evidence that supports a disparate-impact claim is different from that which would support a disparate-treatment claim. [50] Finally, unlike the Equal Protection Clause, Title VII has repeatedly been construed so as not to undermine employers' ability to undertake voluntary compliance, which is the preferred means of achieving the objectives of Title VII, Ricci, 129 S.Ct. at 2674 (quoting Local No. 93, 478 U.S. at 515, 106 S.Ct. 3063). In sum, a strong basis in evidence of disparate-impact liability is an objectively reasonable basis to fear such liability. It is evaluated at the time an employer takes a race-conscious action. It relies on real evidence, not just subjective fear or speculation. Because it focuses on liability rather than mere litigation, it requires both objectively strong evidence of a prima facie case (or perhaps actual proof of a prima facie case ) of disparate impact, and objectively strong evidence of non-job-relatedness or a less discriminatory alternative.
Even after an employer has shown a strong basis in evidence that it faces disparate-impact liability, the employer does not have carte blanche to take whatever race- or gender-conscious actions it pleases. Rather, the employer must have a strong basis in evidence to believe it will be subject to disparate-impact liability if it fails to take the race-conscious [or gender-conscious], discriminatory action.  Id. at 2677 (emphasis added). That is to say, there must be a strong basis in evidence that the race- or gender-conscious action taken by the employer is necessary to avoid disparate-impact liability. This necessity issue was not squarely presented in Ricci, for two reasons. First, there was no strong basis in evidence that New Haven would have faced disparate-impact liability, so it was unnecessary to determine what New Haven was permitted to do to remedy the disparate impact. Second, if New Haven had had a strong basis in evidence of disparate-impact liability, then there would have been little question that refusal to certify the test results was precisely what was necessary to avoid liability. There was, therefore, no need in Ricci to undertake the difficult process of determining who might have been a victim of discrimination and what sort of relief might have been required to make such individuals whole. Cf. Teamsters, 431 U.S. at 371-72, 97 S.Ct. 1843. It seems easier to say what would be necessary to avoid a disparate-impact violation that is about to occur but has not yet happened, than it is to say what is necessary to remedy such a violation years after it took place. We think it makes good sense to require that an employer's strong basis in evidence extend beyond the existence of disparate-impact liability, to the necessity of the employer's chosen race- or sex-conscious remedy for that disparate impact. As with the requirement of a strong basis in evidence of liability, a strong basis in evidence of necessity gives effect to both the disparate-treatment and disparate-impact provisions, allowing violations of one in the name of compliance with the other only in certain, narrow circumstances. Ricci, 129 S.Ct. at 2676. In doing so, requiring a strong basis in evidence of necessity avoids extreme positions that would undermine the careful Ricci balancing of disparate treatment and disparate impact under Title VII. If a showing of actual necessity i.e., a showing that the race- or sex-conscious action's beneficiaries were actual victims who received make-whole relief were mandated, employers would likely refuse to settle disparate-impact cases for fear of disparate-treatment liability. See Part V.B, infra; Ricci, 129 S.Ct. at 2674. But if anything less than a strong basis in evidence of necessity were requiredfor example, if an employer's good-faith belief that its actions were necessary to comply with Title VII's disparate-impact provision were enough to justify race-conscious conduct, then employers might give out race-conscious benefits even where there is little if any evidence of disparate-impact discrimination against the recipients of those benefits. See id. at 2674-75. We therefore hold that the strong-basis-in-evidence standard of Ricci applies not only to the question of disparate-impact liability, but also to the further question of whether the employer's race- or gender-conscious action is necessary to remedy that disparate impact. Here too, the employer's belief that its action is necessary to remedy disparate impact, i.e., that the beneficiaries of the action were victims of disparate impact and the action puts them roughly where they would have been in the absence of discrimination, must be objectively reasonable in the above defined sense.