Court Opinion

ID: 9462688
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-04 22:47:25.796926+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:37:43.295403
License: Public Domain

GIBSON, Chief Judge
(dissenting).
I respectfully dissent. The District Court in the instant case concluded that though “[t]he number of black teachers employed by the Hazelwood district is undeniably meager,” there is no “basis in the record * * * for concluding that defendants acted in a discriminatory fashion in failing to hire these fifty-five black applicants during 1972 and 1973.” 392 F.Supp. at 1287, 1289. During recent years Hazelwood has had to turn away teacher applicants at the rate of two to three thou'sand per year. For example, only 282 out of 2,373 applicants for the 1972-73 school year were hired. However, the majority, on a cold appellate record, reverses the District Court’s finding and concludes instead that:
[Statistical evidence demonstrating a disparity between the proportion of blacks in Hazelwood’s workforce and the proportion of blacks in the relevant labor market, when considered in light of Hazel-wood’s hiring procedures involving the use of vague and subjective criteria, indicate a prima facie case of a pattern or practice of employment discrimination in violation of Title VII.
Majority opinion, at 813.
Though the evidence of discrimination with respect to a handful of the 55 applicants presents a close case, in my view the District Court’s finding is not clearly erroneous and should not be disturbed. As to the remainder of the applicants, the Government simply did not come close to proving that the district unlawfully discriminated on account of race.
Under the majority’s rationale, every qualified black applicant must be hired in favor of similarly qualified whites, regardless of the tremendous oversupply of qualified applicants seeking employment. This cannot be the law. The matter of determining which of the many teacher applicants are qualified and desirable candidates according to the needs of the district is exclusively for the “broad and sensitive expertise of the School Board and its officials.” Kemp v. Beasley, 389 F.2d 178, 189 (8th Cir. 1968); accord, Smith v. Board of Education, 365 F.2d 770, 782 (8th Cir. 1966). To justify federal interference in the hiring process under Title VII, actual discrimination should be proved, not presumed.
The majority here takes an unwarranted step in directing and monitoring the operation of a local school system, in effect undertaking the administrative and operational powers of the school board and officials. This can only lead to a further deterioration in the quality of public education, with a substantial increase in costs on the already *821overburdened taxpayer. In reality, the two applicants to whom the majority grants backpay are receiving an unearned windfall from school district funds. Of the thousands of applicants rejected by the district, the great majority of whom were likely qualified, these two (and perhaps the remaining 14 to be considered on remand) were fortuitous enough to be black and to complain about not being hired in favor of whites who were similarly or perhaps somewhat less qualified.
I feel particularly uncomfortable with the majority’s undue reliance upon inconclusive statistical evidence and with the court’s imposition of such a broad remedy. Though, as the majority notes, courts in Title VII litigation do “listen” to statistical evidence, such listening must be done “with a critical ear,” Logan v. General Fireproofing Co., 521 F.2d 881, 883 (4th Cir. 1971), closely scrutinizing the many complex variables of statistical empirical proof. Pettway v. American Cast Iron Pipe Co., 494 F.2d 211, 231 n. 44 (5th Cir. 1974). I believe the majority has misinterpreted the significance of the District Court’s reference to the ratio of black teachers to black students in the Hazelwood district, and has improperly adopted the St. Louis metropolitan area as the relevant labor market to inflate and distort the concentration of available black teachers for comparison.
Here, as always, determination of the relevant labor market from which the employer draws its employees was a question for the trier of fact, see United States v. Ironworkers Local 86, 443 F.2d 544, 550-51 (9th Cir.), cert. denied, 404 U.S. 984, 92 S.Ct. 447, 30 L.Ed.2d 367 (1971), not for this court to make on limited appellate review. The District Court made no explicit selection of a relevant labor market for comparison with Hazelwood’s workforce, but did specifically reject the Government’s attempt to employ the St. Louis metropolitan area for that purpose. 392 F.Supp. at 1287. Given the fact that Hazelwood in fact recruits its teachers from a broad multistate area, majority opinion, at 808-809,1 would hold that the relevant labor market can only be accurately defined as the same large multistate area. Johnson v. Goodyear Tire & Rubber Co., 491 F.2d 1364, 1371 (5th Cir. 1974). Where justified by the record, federal courts have referred to statistics encompassing statewide or even regional areas. See, e. g., Griggs v. Duke Power Co., 401 U.S. 424, 430 n. 6, 91 S.Ct. 849, 853, 28 L.Ed.2d 158, 163 (1971) (all of North Carolina); United States v. Georgia Power Co., 474 F.2d 906, 918 (5th Cir. 1973) (the entire South). I would affirm the District Court’s finding that no discrimination was proved.
The broad scope of the remedy adopted by the majority is even more distressing in my view. The relief imposed is a prime example of the heavy-handed manner in which the federal courts have interfered in the operation of local schools, to the detriment of the schools and taxpayers, resulting in a misdirection of tax funds voted by the people for educational purposes. The permanent injunction is unwarranted in this case, for it compels the federal courts to monitor operation of the Hazelwood district on an endless basis, thus subjecting the district to the imposition of serious sanctions and penalties possible under a contempt finding.
I take particular exception to the imposition of job selection criteria and hiring preferences and to the requirement that the district must provide, for federal inspection, a record “explaining its reasons for selecting a white applicant over available black applicant(s) for each vacancy filled during the three-year period.” Majority opinion, at 819. This is a long step in the direction of reverse discrimination operating only in favor of a specified minority. See DeFunis v. Odegaard, 416 U.S. 312, 336, 94 S.Ct. 1704, 1716, 40 L.Ed.2d 164, 180 (1974) (Douglas, J., dissenting) (“There is no constitutional right for any race to be preferred.”). The instant record fails to reveal any exceptional circumstances to justify such a remedy. Cf. Carter v. Gallagher, 452 F.2d 315, 331 (8th Cir.), cert. denied, 406 U.S. 950, 92 S.Ct. 2045, 32 L.Ed.2d 338 (1972). Preferential remedies of this sort should be resorted to only when no alterna*822tive means exist for eradicating discrimination.
In essence, the majority seeks to hire black teachers without regard to the relevant employment criteria — professional qualification, teaching talent, skills and experience — and in spite of the racial and ethnic makeup of the student, teacher and taxpayer composition of the school district and the larger relevant labor market. Under the majority rationale every qualified black must be hired irrespective of the relevant labor market and the qualifications of competing white teachers. Surely, neither the Constitution nor the statute, Title VII, mandates such an extensive interference in local school operations.