Affirmative action is defined as a set of procedures designed to eliminate unlawful discrimination among applicants, remedy the results of such prior discrimination, and prevent such discrimination in the future. Applicants may be seeking admission to an educational program or looking for professional employment.
Does a plaintiff state a claim under 42 U.S.C. § 1981 in the absence of but-for causation by alleging that racial discrimination was a motivating factor in the defendant’s refusal to contract?
This case asks the Supreme Court to consider whether claims under Section 1981 can survive absent a showing that race was the but-for cause of the plaintiff’s harm. Here, NAAAOM sued Comcast for racially discriminating against ESN’s network by refusing to enter into a contract with them. Comcast argues that a plaintiff cannot successfully plead race discrimination if race was not the but-for cause—or the actual cause—of the refusal to contract. NAAAOM counters that the correct causation standard is a “motivating factor” or “mixed-motives” approach in which racial discrimination need only be one factor in establishing a claim under Section 1981. This case’s outcome could affect how Section 1981 and Title VII claims are brought by marginalized communities and how employers will allocate resources to handle litigation.
Whether a claim of race discrimination under 42 U.S.C. § 1981 fails in the absence of but-for causation.
Entertainment Studios (“ESN”) is a media company with operating segments in television networks, production, and distribution. See Brief for Petitioner, Comcast Corporation at 5. In order to operate, ESN relies on cable operators to carry their content to ESN’s paid subscribers. Id.
Can school districts constitutionally use percentage-based range plans to assign students to public schools based on race in order to capture the benefits of educational diversity?
The Jefferson County Public School District in Jefferson County, Kentucky, requires that 15 to 50 percent of all students in each school be African-American. Petitioner Crystal Meredith claims that the district violated the Fourteenth Amendment when it rejected her application to enroll her son at a nearby school on the basis of race. To decide this case, the Supreme Court will have to determine whether racial diversity in K–12 public education is a compelling state interest and whether the district’s racial range mandate is narrowly tailored to further that interest. The decision will determine the extent to which schools are permitted to consider race in school assignment policies.
The backdrop for this case was set in 1954. In Brown v. Board of Education, 347 U.S. 483 (1954), the Supreme Court mandated the desegregation of public schools. Over subsequent decades, federal courts ordered school districts with institutionalized segregation plans to desegregate through a system of redistricting and busing. See Swann v. Charlotte-Mecklenburg Bd.
The authors would like to thank Professors Sherri Lynn Johnson, Trevor Morrison, and Michael Heise for their insights into this case.
The Supreme Court will hear this case in tandem with a companion case, Parents Involved in Community Sch. v. Seattle Sch. District , which involves a student assignment plan that uses race as a tiebreaker to balance high schools that differ by more than 15 percent from the racial make up of the Seattle public school system.
Whether a school district’s decision to admit a student to a desegregated high school based on that student’s race, in an effort to achieve a racial balance within the school and therefore foster diversity in the educational setting, violates that student’s Equal Protection rights given by the Fourteenth Amendment.
Seattle School District No. 1 uses an “open choice” plan in which students rank their preferred schools. When a student’s first choice cannot be accommodated, the District uses race as a tiebreaker in order to achieve a desired racial balance in each individual school. Parents Involved in Community Schools, a non-profit organization, argues that the District’s policy amounts to unconstitutional racial balancing under the Supreme Court’s 2003 decisions in Grutter v. Bollinger, 539 U.S. 306 (2003) and Gratz v. Bollinger, 539 U.S. 244 (2003). The District, however, argues that its consideration of race is to further the compelling state interest of achieving the beneficial effects of racial diversity. The Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit held that the District had a compelling state interest in achieving the benefits of racial diversity and that its plan was narrowly tailored. The Supreme Court will now review that determination in light of its Equal Protection decisions in Grutter and Gratz and is asked to decide whether racial diversity in high schools is a compelling state interest.
This case was brought by a non-profit organization, Parents Involved in Community Schools (“PICS”), representing parents of students in the Seattle School District (“District”) who objected to the school district’s use of race as a tiebreaker for admission to schools as violating the Equal Protection Clause.
