Court Opinion

ID: 9552467
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-07 19:11:06.279531+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T15:26:46.041340
License: Public Domain

RABINOWITZ, Chief Justice,
concurring.
I agree that the Commission’s and the superior court’s rulings should be sustained on appeal. I am unable to conclude, however, that Fridriksson need not have proven intentional discrimination to prevail.1 When a woman alleges that gender was a factor in an employer’s hiring decision, an indispensable requisite of her claim is that the employer willfully discriminated. Absent proof of a discriminatory motive or of facts from which such a motive can be inferred, a woman’s claim of discriminatory treatment must be rejected.2
In this case we are faced with a situation in which the Commission’s findings on the *810crucial issue of discriminatory intent appear to be inconsistent. On one hand, the Commission found that Fridriksson had established a prima facie case of discriminatory treatment and that the prima facie case was unrebutted by the credit union; on the other hand, the Commission noted that the credit union had not “intentionally and willfully” discriminated.3 Notwithstanding this apparent inconsistency I believe that the majority is correct in concluding that Fridriksson’s claim of discriminatory treatment is well-founded because the requisite proof of discriminatory motive is supplied by Fridriksson’s unrebutted prima facie case of discrimination. The Commission’s findings of fact establish the existence of a prima facie case of discrimination, and those findings are supported by substantial evidence. Similarly, the Commission’s finding that the credit union’s proffered justifications for its hiring decision lacked credibility is adequately supported by the record. The legal conclusion that follows from an unrebutted prima facie case is that gender was a factor in the employer’s hiring decision. To the extent that the Commission concluded that the credit union’s actions were not intentionally discriminatory, that finding is at odds with the legally sufficient inference of discrimination supplied by the prima facie case, and the finding must be rejected as without support in the record.

. See note 7 ante.

. Since we have relied on federal Title VII cases for guidance in interpreting Alaska’s anti-discrimination statutes, see Alaska State Comm’n for Hum. Rts. v. Yellow Cab, 611 P.2d 487, 489-92 (Alaska 1980), federal precedent discussing the requirement of proof of discriminatory motive is instructive here. As the Supreme Court observed in International Bhd. of Teamsters v. United States, 431 U.S. 324, 97 S.Ct. 1843, 52 L.Ed.2d 396 (1977):
“Disparate treatment” such as is alleged in the present case is the most easily understood type of discrimination. The employer simply treats some people less favorably than others because of their race, color, religion, sex, or national origin. Proof of discrimina*810tory motive is critical, although it can in some situations be inferred from the mere fact of differences in treatment.
Id. at 335 n.15, 97 S.Ct. at 1854 n.15, 52 L.Ed.2d at 415 n.15 (emphasis supplied). I agree that employers’ personnel decisions may often be the product of preconceived notions about the role of gender in the marketplace rather than of a bad faith, purposeful design to place women at a disadvantage. To the extent that the majority takes the position that an aggrieved woman need not demonstrate that an employer’s decision was made in bad faith, I align myself with the majority. A basic purpose of Alaska’s antidiscrimination legislation is to eradicate the barriers created by gratuitous, stereotyped assumptions about the suitability of women as employees. Insofar as the majority holds that a woman charging discriminatory treatment need not demonstrate that gender was a factor in an employer’s personnel decision, however, I cannot agree with the majority.

. The Commission erroneously concluded that a showing of intentional discrimination was not necessary in order to find for Fridriksson. To reach this conclusion the Commission justifiably relied on federal Title VII precedent, but failed to distinguish between federal cases dealing with the disparate treatment theory of discrimination, which requires proof of discriminatory motive, and cases applying the disparate impact theory, under which proof of discriminatory motive is not necessary.
In a disparate impact case the employer’s motives are irrelevant. The gravamen of a claim under this theory is that a facially neutral hiring criterion — e.g., passing a particular test or meeting minimum height or weight requirements — has a disproportionate impact on a protected class of persons in that the criterion tends to exclude the majority of the persons in that class from eligibility. An aggrieved person challenging the propriety of an exclusionary hiring criterion need only show that the criterion has a disparate impact on a protected class; he need not further demonstrate that the criterion was designed to be discriminatory:
[G]ood intent or absence of discriminatory intent does not redeem employment procedures or testing mechanisms that operate as “built-in headwinds” for minority groups and are unrelated to measuring job capability.
Griggs v. Duke Power Co., 401 U.S. 424, 432, 91 S.Ct. 849, 854, 28 L.Ed.2d 158, 165 (1971). See also Albemarle Paper Co. v. Moody, 422 U.S. 405, 95 S.Ct. 2362, 45 L.Ed.2d 280 (1975), a later disparate impact case relied on by the Commission as support for the proposition that proof of discriminatory motive was not a necessary element of Fridriksson’s case. The Supreme Court’s disparate impact jurisprudence is not, however, applicable to a disparate treatment case such as the one at hand. As the Court has explained:
Proof of discriminatory motive is critical [in a disparate treatment case], although it can in some situations be inferred from the mere fact of differences in treatment. ...
Claims of disparate treatment may be distinguished from claims that stress “disparate impact.” The latter involve employment practices that are facially neutral in their treatment of different groups but that in fact fall more harshly on one group than another and cannot be justified by business necessity... . Proof of discriminatory motive, we have held, is not required under a disparate impact theory.
International Bhd. of Teamsters v. United States, 431 U.S. at 335 n.15, 97 S.Ct. at 1854 n.15, 52 L.Ed.2d at 415 n.15 (citations omitted).