Court Opinion

ID: 9842084
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-09-22 20:12:38.961336+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T09:09:35.901211
License: Public Domain

Justice Powell,
concurring.
In many respects this case is similar to Sheet Metal Workers v. EEOC, 478 U. S. 421 (1986). Here, as in that case, racial discrimination had been continued for many years in contravention of repeated decisions of the District Court. NAACP v. Allen, 340 F. Supp. 703, 705 (MD Ala. 1972); Paradise v. Dothard, Civ. Action No. 3561-N (MD Ala., Aug 5, 1975); Paradise v. Shoemaker, 470 F. Supp. 439, 442 (MD Ala. 1979); Paradise v. Prescott, 585 F. Supp. 72, 74 (MD Ala. 1983). There are differences. Sheet Metal Workers involved an action under Title VII, and here the courts below found a violation of the Equal Protection Clause.1 Also, in Sheet Metal Workers the District Court had finally cited the union for contempt. This difference is of no importance where, as here, it has been established beyond question that the Department of Public Safety had engaged in persistent violation of constitutional rights and repeatedly failed to carry out court orders. In such circumstances there is a “compelling governmental interest sufficient to justify the imposition of a racially classified remedy.” Sheet Metal Workers v. EEOC, supra, at 485.
I therefore agree with the plurality that the protracted history of this litigation justifies the conclusion that the “one-for-one” promotion to corporal was appropriate. It is reasonable to conclude that the District Court would have been “powerless to provide an effective remedy” if it had lacked authority to establish a benchmark against which to measure progress in remedying the effects of the discrimination. Sheet Metal Workers v. EEOC, 478 U. S., at 487.
*187In determining whether an affirmative-action remedy is narrowly drawn to achieve its goal, I have thought that five factors may be relevant: (i) the efficacy of alternative remedies; (ii) the planned duration of the remedy; (iii) the relationship between the percentage of minority workers to be employed and the percentage of minority group members in the relevant population or work force; (iv) the availability of waiver provisions if the hiring plan could not be met; and (v) the effect of the remedy upon innocent third parties. Id., at 485-486; Fullilove v. Klutznick, 448 U. S. 448, 510-511, 514 (1980) (opinion of Powell, J.).2 The plurality opinion today makes clear that the affirmative action ordered by the Dis*188trict Court and approved by the Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit was narrowly drawn to achieve the goal of remedying the proven and continuing discrimination. In view of the plurality’s thorough opinion, I will mention only certain aspects of the plan before us.
The District Court imposed the one-for-one promotion requirement only on one occasion, when it ordered the promotion of eight blacks and eight whites to the rank of corporal in February 1984. Because the Department urgently needed at least 15 additional corporals, see Paradise v. Prescott, 580 F. Supp. 171, 173 (MD Ala. 1983), there appears to have been no alternative remedy that would have met the then-existing need. Given the findings of persistent discrimination, the Department’s longstanding resistance to necessary remedies, and the exigent circumstances presented to the District Court, the imposition of a one-for-one requirement for the particular promotions at issue did not violate the Equal Protection Clause.
The District Court’s order contains significant elements of flexibility and fairness. First, it applies only if qualified black candidates are available for promotion. Second, the court suspended the order when the Department proposed procedures that appeared likely to have no adverse impact on minority applicants. It thus appears that the court’s order is based upon “realistic expectations,” and that the one-for-one requirement is likely to be, as the court intended, a “one-time occurrence.” Paradise v. Prescott, supra, at 75-76. The court’s actions indicate that the order will be enforced in a constitutional manner if it is reimposed. As in Sheet Metal Workers, “[a]n examination of what has occurred in this litigation over the years makes plain that the District Court has not enforced the goal in [a] rigid manner.” 478 U. S., at 489, n. 4 (emphasis in original).
Finally, and particularly important, the effect of the order on innocent white troopers is likely to be relatively diffuse. Unlike layoff requirements, the promotion requirement at *189issue in this case does not “impose the entire burden of achieving racial equality on particular individuals,” and does not disrupt seriously the lives of innocent individuals. See Wygant v. Jackson Board of Education, 476 U. S. 267, 283 (1986) (opinion of Powell, J.).3 Although the burden of a narrowly prescribed promotion goal,- as in this case, is not diffused throughout society generally, the burden is shared by the nonminority employees over a period of time. As noted above, only qualified minority applicants are eligible for promotion, and qualified nonminority applicants remain eligible to compete for the available promotions. Although some white troopers will have their promotions delayed, it is uncertain whether any individual trooper, white or black, would have achieved a different rank, or would have achieved it at a different time, but for the promotion requirement.
In view of the purpose and indeed the explicit language of the Equal Protection Clause, court-ordered or government-adopted, affirmative-action plans must be most carefully scrutinized. The plurality in its opinion today has done this. I therefore join the opinion.

 Although we need not resolve the question in this case, I have not thought the standards of analysis in Title VII and equal protection cases — though similar — are identical.

 Our decisions make clear that all government-imposed, affirmative-action plans must be closely scrutinized because “[rjacial classifications are simply too pernicious to permit any but the most exact connection between justification and classification.” Fullilove v. Klutznick, 448 U. S., at 537 (Stevens, J., dissenting). Because racial distinctions are inherently suspect whether they are imposed by a legislature or a court, we have never measured court-ordered, affirmative-action remedies against a less demanding standard.
Justice Stevens’ opinion concurring in the judgment relies primarily on school desegregation decisions such as Swann v. Charlotte-Mecklenburg Board of Education, 402 U. S. 1 (1971). See post, at 194-195. Although these cases are broadly relevant, they differ significantly from the Court’s subsequent affirmative-action decisions. To be sure, a pupil who is bused from a neighborhood school to a comparable school in a different neighborhood may be inconvenienced. Indeed, I have said that “[ejxtensive pupil transportation may threaten liberty or privacy interests.” Washington v. Seattle School District No. 1, 458 U. S. 457, 492, n. 6 (1982). But the position of bused pupils is far different from that of employees who are laid off or denied promotion. Court-ordered busing does not deprive students of any race of an equal opportunity for an education. Cf. Regents of the University of California v. Bakke, 438 U. S. 265, 300 n. 39 (1978) (opinion of Powell, J.) (distinguishing bused pupil from applicant denied admission to medical school). Moreover, as the Court noted in Swann, busing had been common for years in many schools districts throughout the country. 402 U. S., at 29-30. See also Keyes v. School Dist. No. 1, Denver, Colo., 413 U. S. 189, 243, n. 22 (1973) (POWELL, J., concurring in part and dissenting in part).

 See generally Fallon & Weiler, Firefighters v. Stotts: Conflicting Models of Racial Justice, 1984 S. Ct. Rev. 1, 28-32 (contending that allocating the costs of affirmative-action remedies raises separate issues of fairness).