Court Opinion

ID: 9745361
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-26 22:51:21.476662+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:24:59.287802
License: Public Domain

LEVIN H. CAMPBELL, Circuit Judge
(concurring).
I join the opinion of the court, and wish only to reemphasize the limited reach of our. holding. A state may lawfully enact legislation to benefit its veterans, and one way that it may do so is by giving them preference in the obtaining of public employment. But I see a basic distinction between giving veterans credit and even a headstart over other jobseekers on the one hand¡ and on the other giving them complete entitlement to the most desirable jobs, no matter what the competition. The Massachusetts veterans preference statute does the latter, and I therefore .believe it goes too far, by creating a preference so absolute that all women, except the very few who are veterans, are effectively and permanently barred from all areas of civil service employment not shunned by men.
Admittedly the statute is not on its face gender-based, and I agree with Judge Murray that a state, in pursuit of its lawful objects, can go very far in enacting legislation that has an incidental impact upon persons of one gender. ■ Jut surely if legislation has the effect of broadly excluding a constitutionally protected group such as women from opportunities normally open to all, there comes a point where courts must ask not only whether the state’s aims are lawful but whether the means are permissible. Here I am of the opinion that the exclusionary impact is so total as to amount to a denial of equal protection under the fourteenth amendment. There are available to Massachusetts many other means for aiding and preferring its veterans which would not lead to a near blanket, permanent exclusion of all women from a major sector of employment.