Fourteenth Amendment, Section 1:

All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside. No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.

Of critical importance in equal protection litigation is the degree to which government is permitted to take race or another suspect classification into account when formulating and implementing a remedy to overcome the effects of past discrimination. Often the issue is framed in terms of “reverse discrimination,” in that the governmental action deliberately favors members of one class and consequently may adversely affect nonmembers of that class.1 Although the Court had previously accepted the use of suspect criteria such as race to formulate remedies for specific instances of past discrimination2 and had allowed preferences for members of certain non-suspect classes that had been the object of societal discrimination,3 it was not until the late 1970s that the Court gave plenary review to programs that expressly used race as the primary consideration for awarding a public benefit.4

In United Jewish Organizations v. Carey,5 New York State had drawn a plan that consciously used racial criteria to create districts with “nonwhite” populations in order to comply with the Voting Rights Act and to obtain the United States Attorney General’s approval for a redistricting law. These districts were drawn large enough to permit the election of nonwhite candidates in spite of the lower voting turnout of nonwhite citizens. In the process a Hasidic Jewish community previously located entirely within one senate and one assembly district was divided between two senate and two assembly districts, and members of that community sued, alleging that the value of their votes had been diluted solely for the purpose of achieving a racial quota. The Supreme Court approved the districting, although the fragmented majority of seven concurred in no majority opinion.6

Justice White, delivering the judgment of the Court, based the result on alternative grounds. First, because the redistricting took place pursuant to the administration of the Voting Rights Act, Justice White argued that compliance with the Act necessarily required states to be race conscious in the drawing of lines so as not to dilute minority voting strength. Justice White noted that this requirement was not dependent upon a showing of past discrimination and that the states retained discretion to determine just what strength minority voters needed in electoral districts in order to assure their proportional representation. Moreover, the creation of the certain number of districts in which minorities were in the majority was reasonable under the circumstances.7

Second, Justice White wrote that, irrespective of what the Voting Rights Act may have required, what the state had done did not violate either the Fourteenth or the Fifteenth Amendment. This was so because the plan, even though it used race in a purposeful manner, represented no racial slur or stigma with respect to white citizens or any other race; the plan did not operate to minimize or unfairly cancel out white voting strength, because as a class white citizens would be represented in the legislature in accordance with their proportion of the population in the jurisdiction.8

It was anticipated that Regents of the University of California v. Bakke9 would shed further light on the constitutionality of affirmative action. Instead, the Court again fragmented. In Bakke, the Davis campus medical school admitted 100 students each year. Of these slots, the school set aside 16 of those seats for disadvantaged minority students, who were qualified but not necessarily as qualified as those winning admission to the other 84 places. Twice denied admission, Bakke sued, arguing that had the 16 positions not been set aside he could have been admitted. The state court ordered him admitted and ordered the school not to consider race in admissions. By two 5-to-4 votes, the Supreme Court affirmed the order admitting Bakke but set aside the order forbidding the consideration of race in admissions.10

Four Justices, in an opinion by Justice Brennan, argued that racial classifications designed to further remedial purposes were not foreclosed by the Constitution under appropriate circumstances. Even ostensibly benign racial classifications, however, could be misused and produce stigmatizing effects; therefore, they must be searchingly scrutinized by courts to ferret out these instances. But benign racial preferences, unlike invidious discriminations, need not be subjected to strict scrutiny; instead, an intermediate scrutiny would do. As applied, then, this review would enable the Court to strike down a remedial racial classification that stigmatized a group, that singled out those least well represented in the political process to bear the brunt of the program, or that was not justified by an important and articulated purpose.11

Justice Powell, however, argued that all racial classifications are suspect and require strict scrutiny. Because none of the justifications asserted by the college met this high standard of review, he would have invalidated the program. But he did perceive justifications for a less rigid consideration of race as one factor among many in an admissions program; diversity of student body was an important and protected interest of an academy and would justify an admissions set of standards that made affirmative use of race. Ameliorating the effects of past discrimination would justify the remedial use of race, the Justice thought, when the entity itself had been found by appropriate authority to have discriminated, but the college could not inflict harm upon other groups in order to remedy past societal discrimination.12 Justice Powell thus agreed that Bakke should be admitted, but he joined the four justices who sought to allow the college to consider race to some degree in its admissions.13

The Court then began a circuitous route toward disfavoring affirmative action, at least when it occurs outside the education context. At first, the Court seemed inclined to extend the result in Bakke. In Fullilove v. Klutznick,14 the Court, still lacking a majority opinion, upheld a federal statute requiring that at least ten percent of public works funds be set aside for minority business enterprises. A series of opinions by six Justices all recognized that alleviation and remediation of past societal discrimination was a legitimate goal and that race was a permissible classification to use in remedying the present effects of past discrimination. Chief Judge Burger issued the judgment, which emphasized Congress’s preeminent role under the Commerce Clause and the Fourteenth Amendment to determine the existence of past discrimination and its continuing effects and to implement remedies that were race conscious in order to cure those effects. The principal concurring opinion by Justice Marshall applied the Brennan analysis in Bakke, using middle-tier scrutiny to hold that the race conscious set-aside was “substantially related to the achievement of the important and congressionally articulated goal of remedying the present effects of past discrimination.” 15

Taken together, the opinions established that, although Congress had the power to make the findings that will establish the necessity to use racial classifications in an affirmative way, these findings need not be extensive nor express and may be collected in many ways.16 Moreover, although the opinions emphasized the limited duration and magnitude of the set-aside program, they appeared to attach no constitutional significance to these limitations, thus leaving open the way for programs of a scope sufficient to remedy all the identified effects of past discrimination.17 But the most important part of these opinions rested in the clear sustaining of race classifications as permissible in remedies and in the approving of some forms of racial quotas. The Court rejected arguments that minority beneficiaries of such programs are stigmatized, that burdens are placed on innocent third parties, and that the program is overinclusive, so as to benefit some minority members who had suffered no discrimination.18

Despite these developments, the Court remained divided in its response to constitutional challenges to affirmative action plans.19 As a general matter, authority to apply racial classifications was found to be at its greatest when Congress was acting pursuant to section 5 of the Fourteenth Amendment or other of its remedial powers, or when a court is acting to remedy proven discrimination. But a countervailing consideration was the impact of such discrimination on disadvantaged non-minorities. Two cases illustrate the latter point. In Wygant v. Jackson Board of Education,20 the Court invalidated a provision of a collective bargaining agreement giving minority teachers a preferential protection from layoffs. In United States v. Paradise,21 the Court upheld as a remedy for past discrimination a court-ordered racial quota in promotions. Justice White, concurring in Wygant, emphasized the harsh, direct effect of layoffs on affected non-minority employees.22 By contrast, a plurality of Justices in Paradise viewed the remedy in that case as affecting non-minorities less harshly than did the layoffs in Wygant, because the promotion quota would merely delay promotions of those affected, rather than cause the loss of their jobs.23

Footnotes

1

While the emphasis is upon governmental action, private affirmative actions may implicate statutory bars to uses of race. E.g., McDonald v. Santa Fe Trail Transp. Co., 427 U.S. 273 (1976), held, not in the context of an affirmative action program, that white people were as entitled as any group to protection of federal laws banning racial discrimination in employment. The Court emphasized that it was not passing at all on the permissibility of affirmative action programs. Id. at 280 n.8. In United Steelworkers v. Weber, 443 U.S. 193 (1979), the Court held that title VII did not prevent employers from instituting voluntary, race-conscious affirmative action plans. Accord, Johnson v. Transportation Agency, 480 U.S. 616 (1987). Nor does title VII prohibit a court from approving a consent decree providing broader relief than the court would be permitted to award. Local 93, Int’l Ass’n of Firefighters v. City of Cleveland, 478 U.S. 501 (1986). And, court-ordered relief pursuant to title VII may benefit persons not themselves the victims of discrimination. Local 28 of the Sheet Metal Workers’ Int’l Ass’n v. EEOC, 478 U.S. 421 (1986).

2

E.g., Swann v. Charlotte-Mecklenburg Board of Education, 402 U.S. 1, 22–25 (1971).

3

Programs to overcome past societal discriminations against women have been approved, Kahn v. Shevin, 416 U.S. 351 (1974); Schlesinger v. Ballard, 419 U.S. 498 (1975); Califano v. Webster, 430 U.S. 313 (1977), but gender classifications are not as suspect as racial ones. Preferential treatment for American Indians was approved, Morton v. Mancari, 417 U.S. 535 (1974), but on the basis that the classification was political rather than racial.

4

The constitutionality of a law school admissions program in which minority applicants were preferred for a number of positions was before the Court in DeFunis v. Odegaard, 416 U.S. 312 (1974), but the Court did not reach the merits.

5

430 U.S. 144 (1977). Chief Justice Burger dissented, id. at 180, and Justice Marshall did not participate.

6

For a detailed discussion of the use of racial considerations in apportionment and districting by the States, see infra Amendment 14: Section 1: Rights Guaranteed: Fundamental Interests: The Political Process: Apportionment and Districting.

7

430 U.S. at 155–65. Joining this part of the opinion were Justices Brennan, Blackmun, and Stevens.

8

430 U.S. at 165–68. Joining this part of the opinion were Justices Stevens and Rehnquist. In a separate opinion, Justice Brennan noted that preferential race policies were subject to several substantial arguments: (1) they may disguise a policy that perpetuates disadvantageous treatment; (2) they may serve to stimulate society’s latent race consciousness; (3) they may stigmatize recipient groups as much as overtly discriminatory practices against them do; (4) they may be perceived by many as unjust. The presence of the Voting Rights Act and the Attorney General’s supervision made the difference to him in this case. Id. at 168. Justices Stewart and Powell concurred, agreeing with Justice White that there was no showing of a purpose on the legislature’s part to discriminate against white voters and that the effect of the plan was insufficient to invalidate it. Id. at 179.

9

438 U.S. 265 (1978).

10

Four Justices did not reach the constitutional question. In their view, Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which bars discrimination on the ground of race, color, or national origin by any recipient of federal financial assistance, outlawed the college’s program and made unnecessary any consideration of the Constitution. See 78 Stat. 252, 42 U.S.C. §§ 2000d to 2000d–7. These Justices would have admitted Bakke and barred the use of race in admissions. 438 U.S. at 408–21 (Justices Stevens, Stewart, and Rehnquist and Chief Justice Burger). The remaining five Justices agreed among themselves that Title VI, on its face and in light of its legislative history, proscribed only what the Equal Protection Clause proscribed. 438 U.S. at 284–87 (Justice Powell), 328-55 (Justices Brennan, White, Marshall, and Blackmun). They thus reached the constitutional issue.

11

438 U.S. at 355–79 (Justices Brennan, White, Marshall, and Blackmun). The intermediate standard of review adopted by the four Justices is that formulated for gender cases. “Racial classifications designed to further remedial purposes ‘must serve important governmental objectives and must be substantially related to achievement of those objectives.’” Id. at 359.

12

438 U.S. at 287–320.

13

See 438 U.S. at 319–20 (Justice Powell).

14

448 U.S. 448 (1980). Justice Stewart, joined by Justice Rehnquist, dissented in one opinion, id. at 522, while Justice Stevens dissented in another. Id. at 532.

15

448 U.S. at 517.

16

Whether federal agencies or state legislatures and state agencies have the same breadth and leeway to make findings and formulate remedies was left unsettled, but that they have some such power seems evident. 448 U.S. at 473–80. The program was an exercise of Congress’s spending power, but the constitutional objections raised had not been previously resolved in that context. The plurality therefore turned to Congress’s regulatory powers, which in this case undergirded the spending power, and found the power to lie in the Commerce Clause with respect to private contractors and in section 5 of the Fourteenth Amendment with respect to state agencies. The Marshall plurality appeared to attach no significance in this regard to the fact that Congress was the acting party.

17

448 U.S. at 484–85, 489 (Chief Justice Burger), 513-15 (Justice Powell).

18

448 U.S. at 484–89 (Chief Justice Burger), 514-515 (Justice Powell), 520-521 (Justice Marshall).

19

Guidance on constitutional issues is not necessarily afforded by cases arising under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act, the Court having asserted that “the statutory prohibition with which the employer must contend was not intended to extend as far as that of the Constitution,” and that “voluntary employer action can play a crucial role in furthering Title VII’s purpose of eliminating the effects of discrimination in the workplace.” Johnson v. Transportation Agency, 480 U.S. 616, 628 n.6, 630 (1987) (upholding a local governmental agency’s voluntary affirmative action plan predicated upon underrepresentation of women rather than upon past discriminatory practices by that agency). The constitutionality of the agency’s plan was not challenged. See id. at 620 n.2.

20

476 U.S. 267 (1986).

21

480 U.S. 149 (1987).

22

476 U.S. at 294. A plurality of Justices in Wygant thought that past societal discrimination alone is insufficient to justify racial classifications; they would require some convincing evidence of past discrimination by the governmental unit involved. 476 U.S. at 274–76 (opinion of Justice Powell, joined by Chief Justice Burger and by Justices Rehnquist and O’Connor).

23

480 U.S. at 182–83 (opinion of Justice Brennan, joined by Justices Marshall, Blackmun, and Powell). A majority of Justices emphasized that the egregious nature of the past discrimination by the governmental unit justified the ordered relief. 480 U.S. at 153 (opinion of Justice Brennan), id. at 189 (Justice Stevens).