Results:
- Footnote 17 of Justice Brennan's majority opinion [sentence context: The Agency earmarks no positions for anyone; sex is but one of several factors that may be taken into account in evaluating qualified applicants for a position. 17]
JUSTICE SCALIA's dissent predicts that today's decision will loose a flood of "less qualified" minorities and women upon the work force, as employers seek to forestall possible Title VII liability. Post, at 673-677. The first problem with this projection is that it is by no means certain that employers could in every case necessarily avoid liability for discrimination merely by adopting an affirmative action plan. Indeed, our unwillingness to require an admission of discrimination as the price of adopting a plan has been premised on concern that the potential liability to which such an admission would expose an employer would serve as a disincentive for creating an affirmative action program. See n. 8, supra.
- Justice Scalia's dissenting opinion:
In addition to complying with the commands of the statute, abandoning Weber would have the desirable side effect of eliminating the requirement of willing suspension of disbelief that is currently a credential for reading our opinions in the affirmative-action field - from Weber itself, which demanded belief that the corporate employer adopted the affirmative-action program "voluntarily," rather than under practical compulsion from government contracting agencies, see 443 U.S., at 204 ; to Bakke, a Title VI case cited as authority by the majority here, ante, at 638, which demanded belief that the University of California took race into account as merely one of the many diversities to which it felt it was educationally important to expose its medical students, see 438 U.S., at 311 -315; to today's opinion, which - in the face of a plan obviously designed to force promoting officials to prefer candidates from the favored racial and sexual classes, warning them that their "personal commitment" will be determined by how successfully they "attain" certain numerical goals, [480 U.S. 616, 674] and in the face of a particular promotion awarded to the less qualified applicant by an official who "did little or nothing" to inquire into sources "critical" to determining the final candidates' relative qualifications other than their sex - in the face of all this, demands belief that we are dealing here with no more than a program that "merely authorizes that consideration be given to affirmative action concerns when evaluating qualified applicants." Ante, at 638. Any line of decisions rooted so firmly in naivete must be wrong.
- And another from Justice Scalia's dissent:
It is unlikely that today's result will be displeasing to politically elected officials, to whom it provides the means of quickly accommodating the demands of organized groups to achieve concrete, numerical improvement in the economic status of particular constituencies. Nor will it displease the world of corporate and governmental employers (many of whom have filed briefs as amici in the present case, all on the side of Santa Clara) for whom the cost of hiring less qualified workers is often substantially less - and infinitely more predictable - than the cost of litigating Title VII cases and of seeking to convince federal agencies by nonnumerical means that no discrimination exists. In fact, the only losers in the process are the Johnsons of the country, for whom Title VII has been not merely repealed but actually inverted. The irony is that these individuals - predominantly unknown, unaffluent, unorganized - suffer this injustice at the hands of a Court fond of thinking itself the champion of the politically impotent. I dissent.
When the [Santa Clara County Transportation] Agency announced a vacancy for the promotional position of road dispatcher, none of the 238 positions in the pertinent Skilled Craft Worker job classification, which included the dispatcher position, was held by a woman. The qualified applicants for the position were interviewed and the Agency, pursuant to the Plan, ultimately passed over petitioner, a male employee, and promoted a female, Diane Joyce, both of whom were rated as well qualified for the job.The case did not involve a less qualified person, so to characterize the decision as "Supreme Court rules women/minorities may get jobs if less qualified" is a lie. A phrase from Justice Scalia's dissenting opinion should not be used to characterize the decision of the whole court.
I notice that officials for the Reagan era Justice Department were taking Scalia's side in this case. Somehow, it doesn't seem likely that employers really want to hire unqualified people who "often cost substantially less." Why didn't the Reagan Administration want to "quickly accommodat[e] the demands of organized groups to achieve concrete, numerical improvement in the economic status of particular constituencies?" Dear reader, you should know the answer.
Ah, holy Jesus, how have You offended,
that mortal judgment has on you descended?
By foes derided, by Your own rejected,
O most afflicted.
--Johann Heermann, Herzliebster Jesu, 1630. (Verse 1, alt.)
that mortal judgment has on you descended?
By foes derided, by Your own rejected,
O most afflicted.
--Johann Heermann, Herzliebster Jesu, 1630. (Verse 1, alt.)
