Court Opinion

ID: 9427143
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-02 23:19:52.686069+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:23:05.244835
License: Public Domain

Mr. Justice Blackmun,
concurring in part and concurring in the judgment.
Mr. Justice Stewart wrote the opinion for the Court in Geduldig v. Aiello, 417 U. S. 484 (1974), and joined the Court’s opinion in General Electric Co. v. Gilbert, 429 U. S. 125 *724(1976). Mr. Justice White and Mr. Justice Powell joined both Geduldig and General Electric. Mr. Justice Stevens, who writes the opinion for the Court in the present case, dissented in General Electric. 429 U. S., at 160. Mr. Justice Marshall, who joins the Court’s opinion in large part here, joined the dissent in both Geduldig and General Electric. 417 U. S., at 497; 429 U. S., at 146. My own discomfort with the latter case was apparent, I believe, from my separate concurrence there. Ibid.
These “lineups” surely are not without significance. The participation of my Brothers Stewart, White, and Powell in today’s majority opinion should be a sign that the decision in this case is not in tension with Geduldig and General Electric and, indeed, is wholly consistent with them. I am not at all sure that this is so; the votes of Mr. Justice Marshall and Mr. Justice Stevens would indicate quite the contrary.
Given the decisions in Geduldig and General Electric — the one constitutional, the other statutory — the present case just cannot be an easy one for the Court. I might have thought that those decisions' would have required the Court to conclude that the critical difference in the Department’s pension payments was based on life expectancy, a nonstigmatizing factor that demonstrably differentiates females from males and that is not measurable on an individual basis. I might have thought, too, that there is nothing arbitrary, irrational, or “discriminatory” about recognizing the objective and accepted (see ante, at 704, 707, and 722) disparity in female-male life expectancies in computing rates for retirement plans. Moreover, it is unrealistic to attempt to force, as the Court does, an individualized analysis upon what is basically an insurance context. Unlike the possibility, for example, of properly testing job applicants for qualifications before employment, there is simply no way to determine in advance when a particular employee will die.
The Court’s rationale, of course, is that Congress, by Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, as amended, intended to *725eliminate, with, certain exceptions, “race, color, religion, sex, or national origin,” 42 U. S. C. § 2000e-2 (a) (1), as factors upon which employers may act. A program such as the one challenged here does exacerbate gender consciousness. But the program under consideration in General Electric did exactly the same thing and yet was upheld against challenge.
The Court’s distinction between the present case and General Electric — -that the permitted classes there were “pregnant women and nonpregnant persons,” both female and male, ante, at 715 — seems to me to be just too easy.* It is probably the only distinction that can be drawn. For me, it does not serve to distinguish the case on any principled basis. I therefore must conclude that today’s decision cuts back on General Electric, and inferentially on Geduldig, the reasoning of which was adopted there, 429 U. S., at 133-136, and, indeed, makes the recognition of those cases as continuing precedent somewhat questionable. I do not say that this is necessarily bad. If that is what Congress has chosen to do by Title VII — as the Court today with such assurance asserts — so be it. I feel, however, that we should meet the posture of the earlier cases head on and not by thin rationalization that seeks to distinguish but fails in its quest.
I therefore join only Part IV of the Court’s opinion, and concur in its judgment.

It is of interest that Mr. Justice Stevens, in his dissent in General Electric, strongly protested the very distinction he now must make for the Court.
“It is not accurate to describe the program as dividing '“potential recipients into two groups — pregnant women and nonpregnant persons.” ’ . . . The classification is between persons who face a risk of pregnancy and those who do. not.” 429 U. S., at 161-162, n. 5.