Court Opinion

ID: 9430509
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-02 23:29:53.313741+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:23:24.730149
License: Public Domain

Justice Marshall,
with whom Justice Brennan and Justice Blackmun join,
dissenting.
When this Court seeks to resolve far-ranging constitutional issues, it must be especially careful to ground its analysis firmly in the facts of the particular controversy before it. Yet in this significant case, we are hindered by a record that is informal and incomplete. Both parties now appear to realize that the record is inadequate to inform the Court’s decision. Both have lodged with the Court voluminous “submissions” containing factual material that was not considered by the District Court or the Court of Appeals. Petitioners have submitted 21 separate items, predominantly statistical charts, which they assert are relevant to their claim of discrimination. Respondents have, submitted public documents that tend to substantiate the facts alleged in the brief accompanying their motion for summary judgment in the District Court. These include transcripts and exhibits from two prior proceedings, in which certain questions of dis*296crimination in the Jackson schools were litigated, Jackson Education Assn. v. Board of Education, No. 4-72340 (ED Mich. 1976) (Jackson I), and Jackson Education Assn. v. Board of Education, No. 77-011484CZ (Jackson Cty. Cir. Ct. 1979) (Jackson II).
We should not acquiesce in the parties’ attempt to try their case before this Court. Yet it would be just as serious a mistake simply to ignore altogether, as the plurality has done, the compelling factual setting in which this case evidently has arisen. No race-conscious provision that purports to serve a remedial purpose can be fairly assessed in a vacuum.
The haste with which the District Court granted summary judgment to respondents, without seeking to develop the factual allegations contained in respondents’ brief, prevented the full exploration of the facts that are now critical to resolution of the important issue before us. Respondents’ acquiescence in a premature victory in the District Court should not now be used as an instrument of their defeat. Rather, the District Court should have the opportunity to develop a factual record adequate to resolve the serious issue raised by the case. I believe, therefore, that it is improper for this Court to resolve the constitutional issue in its current posture. But, because I feel that the plurality has also erred seriously in its legal analysis of the merits of this case, I write further to express my disagreement with the conclusions that it has reached.
I, too, believe that layoffs are unfair. But unfairness ought not be confused with constitutional injury. Paying no heed to the true circumstances of petitioners’ plight, the plurality would nullify years of negotiation and compromise designed to solve serious educational problems in the public schools of Jackson, Michigan. Because I believe that a public employer, with the full agreement of its employees, should be permitted to preserve the benefits of a legitimate and constitutional affirmative-action hiring plan even while reducing its work force, I dissent.
*297I
The record and extrarecord materials that we have before us persuasively suggest that the plurality has too quickly assumed the absence of a legitimate factual predicate, even under the plurality’s own view, for affirmative action in the Jackson schools. The first black teacher in the Jackson public schools was hired in 1954.1 In 1969, when minority representation on the faculty had risen only to 3.9%, the Jackson branch of the NAACP filed a complaint with the Michigan Civil Rights Commission, alleging that the Board had engaged in various discriminatory practices, including racial discrimination in the hiring of teachers. Respondents’ Lodging No. 6 (complaint). The Commission conducted an investigation and concluded that each of the allegations had merit.2
In settlement of the complaint, the Commission issued an order of adjustment, under which the Jackson Board of Education (Board) agreed to numerous measures designed to improve educational opportunities for black public-school students. Among them was a promise to “[t]ake affirmative steps to recruit, hire and promote minority group teachers *298and counselors as positions bec[a]me available . . . Respondents’ Lodging No. 1-B, p. 3. As a result of the Board’s efforts to comply with the order over the next two years, the percentage of minority teachers increased to 8.8%.
In 1971, however, faculty layoffs became necessary. The contract in effect at that time, between the Board and the Jackson Education Association (Union), provided that layoffs would be made in reverse order of seniority. Because of the recent vintage of the school system’s efforts to hire minorities, the seniority scheme led to the layoff of a substantial number of minority teachers, “literally wip[ing] out all the gain” made toward achieving racial balance. Respondents’ Lodging No. 3, p. 24 (deposition of Superintendent of Schools). Once again, minority teachers on the faculty were a rarity.
By early 1972, when racial tensions in the schools had escalated to violent levels, school officials determined that the best course was full integration of the school system, including integration of the faculty. But they recognized that, without some modification of the seniority layoff system, genuine faculty integration could not take place. See App. 41; Respondents’ Lodging No. 3, p. 69 (deposition of Superintendent of Schools); Respondents’ Lodging No. 2, pp. 16-20 (testimony of Union Executive Director, Jackson I). The Minority Affairs Office of the Jackson Public Schools submitted a questionnaire to all teachers, asking them to consider the possibility of abandoning the “last hired, first fired” approach to layoffs in favor of an absolute freeze on layoffs of minority teachers. The teachers overwhelmingly voted in favor of retaining the straight seniority system. Negotiations ensued between the two camps — on the one hand, the Board, which favored a freeze of minority layoffs and, on the other, the Union, urging straight seniority — and the negotiators ultimately reached accord. One Union leader characterized the development of the layoff compromise as the most *299difficult balancing of equities that he had ever encountered. Record, Doc. No. 4, p. 5.
The compromise avoided placing the entire burden of layoffs on either the white teachers as a group or the minority teachers as a group. Instead, each group would shoulder a portion of that burden equal to its portion of the faculty. Thus, the overall percentage of minorities on the faculty would remain constant. Within each group, seniority would govern which individuals would be laid off. This compromise was the provision at issue here, subsequently known as Article XII:
“In the event that it becomes necessary to reduce the number of teachers through layoff from employment by the Board, teachers with the most seniority in the district shall be retained, except that at no time will there be a greater percentage of minority personnel laid off than the current percentage of minority personnel employed at the time of the layoff. . . . Each teacher so affected will be called back in reverse order for positions for which he is certified maintaining the above minority balance.” App. 13.
The Board and the Union leadership agreed to the adoption of Article XII. The compromise was then presented to the teachers, who ratified it by majority vote. Each of the six times that the contract has been renegotiated, Article XII has been presented for reconsideration to the members of the Union, at least 80% of whom are white, and each time it has been ratified.
To petitioners, at the bottom of the seniority scale among white teachers, fell the lot of bearing the white group’s proportionate share of layoffs that became necessary in 1982. Claiming a right not to lose their jobs ahead of minority teachers with less seniority, petitioners brought this challenge to Article XII under the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment.
*300II
From the outset, it is useful to bear in mind what this case is not. There has been no court order to achieve racial balance, which might require us to reflect upon the existence of judicial power to impose obligations on parties not proved to have committed a wrong. See Swann v. Charlotte-Mecklenburg Board of Education, 402 U. S. 1, 16 (1971). There is also no occasion here to resolve whether a white worker may be required to give up his or her job in order to be replaced by a black worker. See Steelworkers v. Weber, 443 U. S. 193, 208 (1979). Nor are we asked to order parties to suffer the consequences of an agreement that they had no role in adopting. See Firefighters v. Stotts, 467 U. S. 561, 575 (1984). Moreover, this is not a case in which a party to a collective-bargaining agreement has attempted unilaterally to achieve racial balance by refusing to comply with a contractual, seniority-based layoff provision. Cf. Teamsters v. United States, 431 U. S. 324, 350, 352 (1977).
The sole question posed by this case is whether the Constitution prohibits a union and a local school board from developing a collective-bargaining agreement that apportions layoffs between two racially determined groups as a means of preserving the effects of an affirmative hiring policy, the constitutionality of which is unchallenged.3
*301III
Agreement upon a means for applying the Equal Protection Clause to an affirmative-action program has eluded this Court every time the issue has come before us. In University of California Regents v. Bakke, 438 U. S. 265 (1978), four Members of the Court concluded that, while racial distinctions are irrelevant to nearly all legitimate state objectives and are properly subjected to the most rigorous judicial scrutiny in most instances, they are highly relevant to the one legitimate state objective of eliminating the pernicious vestiges of past discrimination; when that is the goal, a less exacting standard of review is appropriate. We explained at length our view that, because no fundamental right was involved and because whites have none of the immutable characteristics of a suspect class, the so-called “strict scrutiny” applied to cases involving either fundamental rights or suspect classifications was not applicable. Id., at 357 (opinion of Brennan, White, Marshall, and Blackmun, JJ.). Nevertheless, we eschewed the least rigorous, “rational basis” standard of review, recognizing that any racial classification is subject to misuse. We determined that remedial use of race is permissible if it serves “important govern*302mental objectives” and is “substantially related to achievement of those objectives.” Id., at 359; see also id., at 387 (opinion of Marshall, J.); id., at 402 (opinion of Blackmun, J.). This standard is genuinely a “strict and searching” judicial inquiry, but is “not ‘“strict” in theory and fatal in fact.’” Id., at 362 (opinion of Brennan, White, Marshall, and Blackmun, JJ.) (quoting Gunther, The Supreme Court, 1971 Term — Foreword: In Search of Evolving Doctrine on a Changing Court: A Model for a Newer Equal Protection, 86 Harv. L. Rev. 1, 8 (1972)). The only other Justice to reach the constitutional issue in Bakke suggested that, remedial purpose or no, any racial distinctions “call for. the most exacting judicial examination.” Id., at 291 (opinion of Powell, J.).
In Fullilove v. Klutznick, 448 U. S. 448 (1980), the Court again disagreed as to the proper standard of review. Three Justices, of whom I was one, concluded that a statute reserving 10% of federal funds for minority contractors served important governmental objectives and was substantially related to achievement of those objectives, surviving attack under our Bakke test. 448 U. S., at 519 (Marshall, J., joined by Brennan and Blackmun, JJ., concurring in judgment). Three other Justices expressly declined to adopt any standard of review, deciding that the provision survived judicial scrutiny under either of the formulae articulated in Bakke. 448 U. S., at 492 (opinion of Burger, C. J., joined by White and Powell, JJ.).
Despite the Court’s inability to agree on a route, we have reached a common destination in sustaining affirmative action against constitutional attack. In Bakke, we determined that a state institution may take race into account as a factor in its decisions, 438 U. S., at 326, and in Fullilove, the Court upheld a congressional preference for minority contractors because the measure was legitimately designed to ameliorate the present effects of past discrimination, 448 U. S., at 520.
*303In this case, it should not matter which test the Court applies. What is most important, under any approach to the constitutional analysis, is that a reviewing court genuinely consider the circumstances of the provision at issue. The history and application of Article XII, assuming verification upon a proper record, demonstrate that this provision would pass constitutional muster, no matter which standard the Court should adopt.
IV
The principal state purpose supporting Article XII is the need to preserve the levels of faculty integration achieved through the affirmative hiring policy adopted in the early 1970’s. Brief for Respondents 41-43. Justification for the hiring policy itself is found in the turbulent history of the effort to integrate the Jackson public schools — not even mentioned in the plurality opinion — which attests to the bona fides of the Board’s current employment practices.
The record and lodgings indicate that the Commission, endowed by the State Constitution with the power to investigate complaints of discrimination and the duty to secure the equal protection of the laws, Mich. Const., Art. V, §29, prompted and oversaw the remedial steps now under attack.4 When the Board agreed to take specified remedial action, including the hiring and promotion of minority teachers, the Commission did not pursue its investigation of the apparent violations to the point of rendering formal findings of discrimination.
*304Instead of subjecting an already volatile school system to the further disruption of formal accusations and trials, it appears that the Board set about achieving the goals articulated in the settlement. According to the then-Superintendent of Schools, the Board was aware, at every step of the way, that “[tjhe NAACP had its court suit ready if either the Board postponed the [integration] operation or abandoned the attempts. They were willing to — they were ready to go into Federal court and get a court order, as happened in Kalamazoo.” Respondents’ Lodging No. 3, p. 44. Rather than provoke the looming lawsuit, the Board and the Union worked with the committees to reach a solution to the racial problems plaguing the school system. In 1972, the Board explained to parents why it had adopted a voluntary integration plan:
“Waiting for what appears the inevitable only flames passions and contributes to the difficulties of an orderly transition from a segregated to a desegregated school system. Firmly established legal precedents mandate a change. Many citizens know this to be true.
‘Waiting for a court order emphasizes to many that we are quite willing to disobey the law until the court orders us not to disobey the law. . . . Further, court orders cost money for both the school system and the litigants.” Respondents’ Lodging No. 1, pp. 1-2 (Exhibit No. 8, Jackson I).
An explicit Board admission or judicial determination of culpability, which petitioners and even the Solicitor General urge us to hold was required before the Board could undertake a race-conscious remedial plan, see Brief for Petitioners 27-29; Brief for United States as Amicus Curiae 29, would only have exposed the Board in this case to further litigation and liability, including individual liability under 42 U. S. C. § 1983, for past acts. It would have contributed nothing to the advancement of the community’s urgent objective of integrating its schools.
*305The real irony of the argument urging mandatory, formal findings of discrimination lies in its complete disregard for a longstanding goal of civil rights reform, that of integrating schools without taking every school system to court. Our school desegregation cases imposed an affirmative duty on local school boards to see that “racial discrimination would be eliminated root and branch.” Green v. New Kent County School Board, 391 U. S. 430, 437-438 (1968); see Brown v. Board of Education, 349 U. S. 294, 299 (1955). Petitioners would now have us inform the Board, having belatedly taken this Court’s admonitions to heart, that it should have delayed further, disputing its obligations and forcing the aggrieved parties to seek judicial relief. This result would, be wholly inconsistent with the national policies against overloading judicial dockets, maintaining groundless defenses, and impeding good-faith settlement of legal disputes. Only last Term, writing for the Court, The Chief Justice reaffirmed that civil rights litigation is no exception to the general policy in favor of settlements: “Indeed, Congress made clear its concern that civil rights plaintiffs not be penalized for ‘helping to lessen docket congestion’ by settling their cases out of court. ... In short, settlements rather than litigation will serve the interests of plaintiffs as well as defendants.” Marek v. Chesny, 473 U. S. 1, 10 (1985). It would defy equity to penalize those who achieve harmony from discord, as it would defy wisdom to impose on society the needless cost of superfluous litigation. The Court is correct to recognize, as it does at least implicitly today, that formal findings of past discrimination are not a necessary predicate to the adoption of affirmative-action policies, and that the scope of such policies need not be limited to remedying specific instances of identifiable discrimination. See ante, at 277 (opinion of Powell, J.); ante, at 289-291 (opinion of O’Connor, J.).
Moreover, under the apparent circumstances of this case, we need not rely on any general awareness of “societal discrimination” to conclude that the Board’s purpose is of suf*306ficient importance to justify its limited remedial efforts. There are allegations that the imperative to integrate the public schools was urgent. Racially motivated violence had erupted at the schools, interfering with all educational objectives. We are told that, having found apparent violations of the law and a substantial underrepresentation of minority teachers, the state agency responsible for ensuring equality of treatment for all citizens of Michigan had instituted a settlement that required the Board to adopt affirmative hiring practices in lieu of further enforcement proceedings. That agency, participating as amicus curiae through the Attorney General of Michigan, still stands fully behind the solution that the Board and the Union adopted in Article XII, viewing it as a measure necessary to attainment of stability and educational quality in the public schools. See n. 4, supra. Surely, if properly presented to the District Court, this would supply the “[e]videntiary support for the conclusion that remedial action is warranted” that the plurality purports to seek, ante, at 277. Since the District Court did not permit submission of this evidentiary support, I am at a loss as to why Justice Powell so glibly rejects the obvious solution of remanding for the factfinding he appears to recognize is necessary. See ante, at 278-279, n. 5.
Were I satisfied with the record before us, I would hold that the state purpose of preserving the integrity of a valid hiring policy — which in turn sought to achieve diversity and stability for the benefit of all students — was sufficient, in this case, to satisfy the demands of the Constitution.
V
The second part of any constitutional assessment of the disputed plan requires us to examine the means chosen to achieve the state purpose. Again, the history of Article XII, insofar as we can determine it, is the best source of assistance.
*307A
Testimony of both Union and school officials illustrates that the Board’s obligation to integrate its faculty could not have been fulfilled meaningfully as long as layoffs continued to eliminate the last hired. See App. 41; Respondents’ Lodging No. 3, p. 69 (deposition of Superintendent of Schools); Respondents’ Lodging No. 2, pp. 16-20 (testimony of Union Executive Director, Jackson I). In addition, qualified minority teachers from other States were reluctant to uproot their lives and move to Michigan without any promise of protection from imminent layoff. The testimony suggests that the lack of some layoff protection would have crippled the efforts to recruit minority applicants. Id., at 20, 55, 56. Adjustment of the layoff hierarchy under these circumstances was a necessary corollary of an affirmative hiring policy.
B
Under Justice Powell’s approach, the community of Jackson, having painfully watched the hard-won benefits of its integration efforts vanish as a result of massive layoffs, would be informed today, simply, that preferential layoff protection is never permissible because hiring policies serve the same purpose at a lesser cost. See ante, at 283-284. As a matter of logic as well as fact, a hiring policy achieves no purpose at all if it is eviscerated by layoffs. Justice Powell’s position is untenable.
Justice Powell has concluded, by focusing exclusively on the undisputed hardship of losing a job, that the Equal Protection Clause always bars race-conscious layoff plans. This analysis overlooks, however, the important fact that Article XII does not cause the loss of jobs; someone will lose a job under any layoff plan and, whoever it is, that person will not deserve it. Any per se prohibition against layoff protection, therefore, must rest upon a premise that the tradition of basing layoff decisions on seniority is so fundamental that its *308modification can never be permitted. Our cases belie that premise.
The general practice of basing employment decisions on relative seniority may be upset for the sake of other public policies. For example, a court may displace innocent workers by granting retroactive seniority to victims of employment discrimination. Franks v. Bowman Transportation Co., 424 U. S. 747, 775 (1976). Further, this Court has long held that “employee expectations arising from a seniority system agreement may be modified by statutes furthering a strong public policy interest.” Id., at 778. And we have recognized that collective-bargaining agreements may go further than statutes in enhancing the seniority of certain employees for the purpose of fostering legitimate interests. See Ford Motor Co. v. Huffman, 345 U. S. 330, 339-340 (1953). Accordingly, we have upheld one collectively bargained provision that bestowed enhanced seniority on those who had served in the military before employment, id., at 340, and another that gave preferred seniority status to union chairmen, to the detriment of veterans. Aeronautical Industrial District Lodge 727 v. Campbell, 337 U. S. 521, 529 (1949).
In Steelworkers v. Weber, 443 U. S. 193 (1979), we specifically addressed a departure from the seniority principle designed to alleviate racial disparity. In Weber, a private employer and a union negotiated a collective agreement that reserved for black employees one half of all openings in a plant training program, replacing the prior system of awarding all seats on the basis of seniority. This plan tampered with the expectations attendant to seniority, and redistributed opportunities to achieve an important qualification toward advancement in the company. We upheld the challenged plan under the Civil Rights Act of 1964 because it was designed to “eliminate traditional patterns of racial segregation” in the industry and did not “unnecessarily trammel the interests of the white employees. ” Id., at 201, 208. We required no judicial finding or employer admission of past dis*309crimination to justify that interference with the seniority hierarchy for the sake of the legitimate purposes at stake.
These cases establish that protection from layoff is not altogether unavailable as a tool for achieving legitimate societal goals. It remains to be determined whether the particular form of layoff protection embodied in Article XII falls among the permissible means for preserving minority proportions on the teaching staff.
C
Article XII is a narrow provision because it allocates the impact of an unavoidable burden proportionately between two racial groups. It places no absolute burden or benefit on one race, and, within the confines of constant minority proportions, it preserves the hierarchy of seniority in the selection of individuals for layoff. Race is a factor, along with seniority, in determining which individuals the school system will lose; it is not alone dispositive of any individual’s fate. Cf. Bakke, 438 U. S., at 318 (opinion of Powell, J.). Moreover, Article XII does not use layoff protection as a tool for increasing minority representation; achievement of that goal is entrusted to the less severe hiring policies.6 And Article XII is narrow in the temporal sense as well. The very bilateral process that gave rise to Article XII when its adoption was necessary will also occasion its demise when remedial measures are no longer required. Finally, Article XII modifies contractual expectations that do not themselves carry any connotation of merit or achievement; it does not interfere with the “cherished American ethic” of “[f jairness in individual competition,” Bakke, supra, at 319, n. 53, depriving indi*310viduals of an opportunity that they could be said to deserve. In all of these important ways, Article XII metes out the hardship of layoffs in a manner that achieves its purpose with the smallest possible deviation from established norms.
The Board’s goal of preserving minority proportions could have been achieved, perhaps, in a different way. For example, if layoffs had been determined by lottery, the ultimate effect would have been retention of current racial percentages. A random system, however, would place every teacher in equal jeopardy, working a much greater upheaval of the seniority hierarchy than that occasioned by Article XII; it is not at all a less restrictive means of achieving the Board’s goal. Another possible approach would have been a freeze on layoffs of minority teachers. This measure, too, would have been substantially more burdensome than Article XII, not only by necessitating the layoff of a greater number of white teachers, but also by erecting an absolute distinction between the races, one to be benefited and one to be burdened, in a way that Article XII avoids. Indeed, neither petitioners nor any Justice of this Court has suggested an alternative to Article XII that would have attained the stated goal in any narrower or more equitable a fashion. Nor can I conceive of one.
VI
It is no accident that this least burdensome of all conceivable options is the very provision that the parties adopted. For Article XII was forged in the crucible of clashing interests. All of the economic powers of the predominantly white teachers’ union were brought to bear against those of the elected Board, and the process yielded consensus.
The concerns that have prompted some Members of this Court to call for narrowly tailored, perhaps court-ordered, means of achieving racial balance spring from a legitimate fear that racial distinctions will again be used as a means to persecute individuals, while couched in benign phraseology. That fear has given rise to mistrust of those who profess to *311take remedial action, and concern that any such action “work the least harm possible to other innocent persons competing for the benefit.” Bakke, supra, at 308 (opinion of Powell, J.). One Justice has warned that “if innocent employees are to be made to make any sacrifices . . . , they must be represented and have had full participation rights in the negotiation process,” Firefighters v. Stotts, 467 U. S., at 588, n. 3 (O’Connor, J., concurring), and another has called for a “principle for deciding whether preferential classifications reflect a benign remedial purpose or a malevolent stigmatic classification . . . .” Bakke, supra, at 294-295, n. 34 (opinion of Powell, J.). This case answers that call.
The collective-bargaining process is a legitimate and powerful vehicle for the resolution of thorny problems, and we have favored “minimal supervision by courts and other governmental agencies over the substantive terms of collective-bargaining agreements.” American Tobacco Co. v. Patterson, 456 U. S. 63, 76-77 (1982). We have also noted that “[significant freedom must be afforded employers and unions to create differing seniority systems,” California Brewers Assn. v. Bryant, 444 U. S. 598, 608 (1980).6 The perceived dangers of affirmative action misused, therefore, are naturally averted by the bilateral process of negotiation, agreement, and ratification. The best evidence that Article XII is a narrow means to serve important interests is that representatives of all affected persons, starting from diametrically opposed perspectives, have agreed to it — not once, but six times since 1972.
VII
The narrow question presented by this case, if indeed we proceed to the merits, offers no occasion for the Court to issue broad proclamations of public policy concerning the *312controversial issue of affirmative action. Rather, this case calls for calm, dispassionate reflection upon exactly what has been done, to whom, and why. If one honestly confronts each of those questions against the factual background suggested by the materials submitted to us, I believe the conclusion is inescapable that Article XII meets, and indeed surpasses, any standard for ensuring that race-conscious programs are necessary to achieve remedial purposes. When an elected school board and a teachers’ union collectively bargain a layoff provision designed to preserve the effects of a valid minority recruitment plan by apportioning layoffs between two racial groups, as a result of a settlement achieved under the auspices of a supervisory state agency charged with protecting the civil rights of all citizens, that provision should not be upset by this Court on constitutional grounds.
The alleged facts that I have set forth above evince, at the very least, a wealth of plausible evidence supporting the Board’s position that Article XII was a legitimate and necessary response both to racial discrimination and to educational imperatives. To attempt to resolve the constitutional issue either with no historical context whatever, as the plurality has done, or on the basis of a record devoid of established facts, is to do a grave injustice not only to the Board and teachers of Jackson and to the State of Michigan, but also to individuals and governments committed to the goal of eliminating all traces of segregation throughout the country. Most of all, it does an injustice to the aspirations embodied in the Fourteenth Amendment itself. I would vacate the judgment of the Court of Appeals and remand with instructions that the case be remanded to the District Court for further proceedings consistent with the views I have expressed.7

 Unless otherwise indicated, the historical facts herein recited have been taken from the defendants’ brief in support of its motion for summary judgment before the District Court, Record, Doc. No. 4, pp. 1-6.

 The Commission concluded: “Racial tension continues to be a part of the entire Jackson School System from the elementary level through high school. It would appear, therefore, that each of the allegations as stated in the complaint can be substantiated based upon organizational records, court files, school records, special committee reports and the appraisal conducted by the Superintendent of Schools.” Respondents’ Lodging No. 1-B, p. 11 (order of adjustment). This conclusion is supported by extrareeord materials suggesting that the shortage of minority teachers was the result of past discrimination in teacher hiring. For example, the then-Superintendent of Schools testified that “an administrator . . . told me she had tried to get a position in Jackson in the early 1950’s and was told that they didn’t hire colored people.” This was the “type of thing,” he stated, that led to adoption of Article XII. Respondents’ Lodging No. 3, pp. 22-23.

 Justice O’Connor rests her disposition of this case on the propriety of the hiring plan, even though petitioners have not challenged it. She appears to rely on language in the preamble to the collective-bargaining agreement, which suggests that the “goal of such [affirmative-action] policy shall be to have at least the same percentage of minority racial representation on each individual staff as is represented by the student population of the Jackson Public Schools.” Article VILD.l, App. to Pet. for Cert. la. Believing that the school system’s hiring “goal” ought instead to be the percentage of qualified minorities in the labor pool, Justice O’Con-nor concludes that the challenged layoff provision itself is overly broad. Ante, at 294. Among the materials considered by the District Court and Court of Appeals, however, there is no evidence to show the actual proportion of minority teachers in the Jackson schools, either in relation to *301the qualified minority labor force or in relation to the number of minority students. If the distinction between the two goals is to be considered critical to the constitutionality of the affirmative-action plan, it is incumbent on petitioners — plaintiffs below — to demonstrate that, at the time they were laid off, the proportion of minority teachers had equaled or exceeded the appropriate percentage of the minority labor force, and that continued adherence to affirmative-action goals, therefore, unjustifiably caused their injuries. This petitioners have failed to do. Outside of the First Amendment context, I know of no justification for invalidating a provision because it might, in a hypothetical case, apply improperly to other potential plaintiffs. Petitioners have attempted to.fill the gap in their case by supplying statistical charts to this Court. See, e. g., Petitioners’ Lodging, pp. 56-62. Clearly, however, we are not equipped for such factfinding, and if the hortatory ceiling of the affirmative-action plan is indeed to be considered a significant aspect of the case, then that would be an appropriate subject of inquiry on remand.

 The Commission currently describes its participation in the Jackson matter as follows: “[T]he Commission investigated the allegations and sought to remedy the apparent violations by negotiating an order of adjustment with the Jackson Board. . . . [T]he out-of-line seniority layoff provisions in the Jackson Board of Education’s employment contracts with its teachers since 1972 are consistent with overall desegregation efforts undertaken in compliance .with the Commission’s order of adjustment.” Brief for Michigan Civil Rights Commission, Michigan Dept, of Civil Rights as Amicus Curiae 14 (emphasis added).

 Justice White assumes that respondents’ plan is equivalent to one that deliberately seeks to change the racial composition of a staff by firing and hiring members of predetermined races. Ante, at 295. That assumption utterly ignores the fact that the Jackson plan involves only the means for selecting the employees who will be chosen for layoffs already necessitated by external economic conditions. This plan does not seek to supplant whites with blacks, nor does it contribute in any way to the number of job losses.

 This deference is warranted only if the union represents the interests of the workers fairly; a union’s breach of that duty in the form of racial discrimination gives rise to an action by the worker against the union. See Steele v. Louisville & Nashville R. Co., 323 U. S. 192, 207 (1944).

 1 do not envy the District Court its task of sorting out what this Court has and has not held today. It is clear, at any rate, that from among the many views expressed today, two noteworthy results emerge: a majority of the Court has explicitly rejected the argument that an affirmative-action plan must be preceded by a formal finding that the entity seeking to insti*313tute the plan has committed discriminatory acts in the past; and the Court has left open whether layoffs may be used as an instrument of remedial action.