Opinion ID: 679519
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 4

Heading: Burdens of Production and Proof

Text: 35 The Court in Croson struck down the City of Richmond's minority set-aside program because the City failed to provide an adequate evidentiary showing of past or present discrimination. Croson, 488 U.S. at 498-506, 109 S.Ct. at 723-28. Because the Fourteenth Amendment only tolerates race-conscious programs that narrowly seek to remedy identified discrimination, the Court in Croson explained that state and local governments must identify that discrimination ... with some specificity before they may use race-conscious relief. Id. at 504, 109 S.Ct. at 727. The Court's benchmark for judging the adequacy of the government's factual predicate for affirmative action legislation was whether there exists a strong basis in evidence for [the government's] conclusion that remedial action was necessary. Id. at 500, 109 S.Ct. at 725 (quoting Wygant v. Jackson Bd. of Educ., 476 U.S. 267, 277, 106 S.Ct. 1842, 1849, 90 L.Ed.2d 260 (1986) (plurality opinion)) (emphasis added). 8 36 Although Croson places the burden of production on the municipality to demonstrate a strong basis in evidence that its race- and gender-conscious contract program aims to remedy specifically identified past or present discrimination, the Fourteenth Amendment does not require a court to make an ultimate judicial finding of discrimination before a municipality may take affirmative steps to eradicate discrimination. Wygant, 476 U.S. at 292, 106 S.Ct. at 1856-57 (O'Connor, J., concurring in part and concurring in the judgment). An affirmative action response to discrimination is sustainable against an equal protection challenge so long as it is predicated upon strong evidence of discrimination. Croson, 488 U.S. at 504, 109 S.Ct. at 727. 37 An inference of discrimination may be made with empirical evidence that demonstrates a significant statistical disparity between the number of qualified minority contractors ... and the number of such contractors actually engaged by the locality or the locality's prime contractors. Id. at 509, 109 S.Ct. at 730 (plurality). We do not read Croson to require, nor do we embrace, an attempt to craft a precise mathematical formula to assess the quantum of evidence that rises to the Croson strong basis in evidence benchmark. That must be evaluated on a case-by-case basis. 38 Further, the adequacy of a municipality's showing of discrimination must be evaluated in the context of the breadth of the remedial program advanced by the municipality. Id. at 498, 109 S.Ct. at 724. Ultimately, whether a strong basis in evidence of past or present discrimination exists, thereby establishing a compelling interest for the municipality to enact a race-conscious ordinance, is a question of law. Associated Gen. Contractors v. New Haven, 791 F.Supp. 941, 944 (D.Conn.1992). Underlying that legal conclusion, however, are factual determinations about the accuracy and validity of a municipality's evidentiary support for its program. 39 Notwithstanding the burden of initial production that rests with the municipality, [t]he ultimate burden [of proof] remains with [the challenging party] to demonstrate the unconstitutionality of an affirmative-action program. Wygant, 476 U.S. at 277-78, 106 S.Ct. at 1849 (plurality); see also Johnson v. Transportation Agency, 480 U.S. 616, 626-27, 107 S.Ct. 1442, 1449, 94 L.Ed.2d 615 (1987) (noting in the Title VII context that [i]f [an affirmative action] plan is articulated as the basis for the employer's decision [to take race or gender into account in an employment decision], the burden shifts to the plaintiff to prove that the employer's justification is pretextual and the plan is invalid.); Contractors Ass'n, 6 F.3d at 1005 (explaining that the Contractors, not the City, bear the burden of proof). As Justice O'Connor's concurring opinion in Wygant explained, when the governmental entity 40 introduces its statistical proof as evidence of its remedial purpose, thereby supplying the court with the means for determining that the [entity] had a firm basis for concluding that remedial action was appropriate, it is incumbent upon the nonminority [challengers] to prove their case; they continue to bear the ultimate burden of persuading the court that the [entity's] evidence did not support an inference of prior discrimination and thus a remedial purpose, or that the plan instituted on the basis of this evidence was not sufficiently narrowly tailored. 41 Wygant, 476 U.S. at 293, 106 S.Ct. at 1857 (O'Connor, J., concurring in part and concurring in the judgment). Thus, once Denver presented adequate statistical evidence of precisely defined discrimination in the Denver area construction market, it became incumbent upon Concrete Works either to establish that Denver's evidence did not constitute strong evidence of such discrimination or that the remedial statute was not narrowly drawn. Absent such a showing by Concrete Works, summary judgment upholding Denver's Ordinance would be appropriate. 42 It is through the prism of these evidentiary burdens, Liberty Lobby, 477 U.S. at 254, 106 S.Ct. at 2513, that we evaluate the record in Concrete Works' appeal from the district court's summary judgment ruling. 43