Dean v. City of Shreveport

• Decision Date: 25 January 2006
• Docket Number: No. 04-31163.,04-31163.
• Parties: Jeffrey Todd DEAN, et al., Plaintiffs-Appellants, v. The CITY OF SHREVEPORT, Defendant-Appellee.
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — Fifth Circuit

438 F.3d 448

Jeffrey Todd DEAN, et al., Plaintiffs-Appellants, v. The CITY OF SHREVEPORT, Defendant-Appellee.

No. 04-31163.

United States Court of Appeals, Fifth Circuit.

January 25, 2006.

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Pamela R. Jones (argued), Shreveport, LA, for Plaintiffs-Appellants.

Pamela Nathan Breedlove (argued), Sharp Henry Cerniglia Colvin Weaver & Hymel, Ansel Martin Stroud, III, Tutt, Stroud & Boredelon, Shreveport, LA, for Defendant-Appellee.

Appeals from the United States District Court for the Western District of Louisiana.

Before GARWOOD, SMITH and DeMOSS, Circuit Judges.

DeMOSS, Circuit Judge:

INTRODUCTION

Plaintiffs-Appellants ("Appellants") challenge the district court's grant of summary judgment in favor of Defendant-Appellee City of Shreveport (the "City") dismissing Appellants' 42 U.S.C. § 1983, Title VII, and Louisiana constitutional and statutory claims. We affirm in part, reverse in part, and remand the case for further proceedings consistent with this opinion.

Appellants are white males who were denied employment after applying to become City firefighters. At the time Appellants applied, the City used a hiring process that placed applicants into separate lists according to race and sex. The City created its race-conscious hiring process in an attempt to comply with a 1980 consent decree drafted to end discriminatory hiring practices in the City's fire department and to remedy the effects of past discrimination. Appellants challenge both the decree and the hiring process.

FACTUAL BACKGROUND

In 1977, the U.S. Department of Justice ("DOJ") filed a lawsuit against the City alleging its fire department used racially and sexually discriminatory hiring practices. To settle the lawsuit, the City signed a proposed consent decree providing a plan to end then-current discriminatory practices and remedy the effects of past discrimination. Although the City signed the decree, it did not admit to any unlawful discrimination. Because the City declined to admit to unlawful discrimination, the district court initially refused to enter the decree. United States v. City of Alexandria, No. 77-2040, 1977 WL 69 (E.D.La. July 22, 1977). However, in 1980, this Court reversed the district court and ordered the decree be entered. United States v. City of Alexandria, 614 F.2d 1358 (5th Cir.1980).¹

To remedy the effects of past discrimination, the decree sets forth a long-term goal that the City achieve—subject to the availability of qualified applicants—the same proportions of blacks and women in its fire department "as blacks and women bear to the appropriate work force in the particular jurisdiction."² However, the decree does not define "appropriate work force." The decree also requires the City to adopt an interim hiring goal of filling at least fifty percent of all firefighter vacancies with qualified black applicants and at least fifteen percent with qualified female applicants. The interim goal remains in effect until the long-term goal is achieved and maintained for one year.

The decree itself does not mandate any particular hiring process for meeting its goals. Therefore, the City formed its own process.³ Phase one requires all firefighter applicants to take the Civil Service Exam. To pass, an applicant needs a score of at least seventy-five. Points are then added to the scores of applicants with prior emergency medical or paramedic training or military service. When the final numerical scores are calculated, the applicants are separated into three lists: a white male list, a black male list, and a female list. Each list is ranked by exam score from highest to lowest. The City then determines how many firefighter positions it needs to fill. Finally, starting with the highest exam score on each list, the City selects approximately twice as many applicants as vacant spots to proceed to phase two of the hiring process. Of those selected to proceed, fifty percent of the males are white and fifty percent are black. Every female who receives a seventy-five on the exam usually proceeds to phase two because of the extremely low number of female applicants.

Phase two includes six additional steps an applicant must pass to become a firefighter: (1) an agility test; (2) a general preliminary interview, screening for disqualifying conduct, such as drug use; (3) a criminal background check; (4) a polygraph exam; (5) a psychological exam and interview; and (6) a medical exam. An applicant who fails any step is immediately denied employment. An applicant who passes each step is immediately awarded employment.

Under this hiring process, Appellants' exam scores in phase one were too low on the white male list to proceed to phase two.

PROCEDURAL HISTORY

In October 2000, Appellant Jeffery Todd Dean ("Dean"), an unsuccessful white male applicant, sued the City under 42 U.S.C. § 1983, alleging the decree and the hiring process violate the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. Dean and the City filed cross-motions for summary judgment. In 2002, during the pendency of those motions, eight additional white male applicants brought similar discrimination suits against the City. In addition to Dean's equal protection claim, they asserted claims under Title VII, the Louisiana Constitution, and a Louisiana anti-discrimination employment statute.⁴ The cases were consolidated with Dean's, and all eight joined his pending motion for summary judgment. All parties stipulated to proceed before a magistrate judge. In October 2004, the magistrate judge denied Dean's motion for summary judgment and granted the City's, dismissing all claims against the City. This timely appeal followed.

DISCUSSION

I. Applicable Standard of Review

We review a district court's grant of summary judgment de novo and apply the same standards as the district court. Daniels v. City of Arlington, 246 F.3d 500, 502 (5th Cir.2001). Summary judgment is proper only "if the pleadings, depositions, answers to interrogatories, and admissions on file, together with the affidavits, if any, show that there is no genuine issue as to any material fact and that the moving party is entitled to judgment as a matter of law." FED. R. CIV. P. 56(c); see also Priester v. Lowndes County, 354 F.3d 414, 419 (5th Cir.2004). "If the moving party meets the initial burden of showing there is no genuine issue of material fact, the burden shifts to the nonmoving party to produce evidence or designate specific facts showing the existence of a genuine issue for trial." Priester, 354 F.3d at 419. We resolve doubts in favor of the nonmoving party and make all reasonable inferences in favor of that party. Id.

II. Appellants' Equal Protection Clause Claim

Appellants first contend that the consent decree and the City's hiring process violate their right to equal protection under the United States Constitution.

a. Strict Scrutiny

The Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment provides that "[n]o State shall . . . deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws." U.S. CONST. amend. XIV, § 1 (emphasis added); see also City of Richmond v. J.A. Croson Co., 488 U.S. 469, 493, 109 S.Ct. 706, 102 L.Ed.2d 854 (1989). "Classifications based on race carry a danger of stigmatic harm . . . [and] may in fact promote notions of racial inferiority and lead to a politics of racial hostility." Croson, 488 U.S. at 493, 109 S.Ct. 706. Thus, all race-conscious measures receive strict scrutiny review under the Equal Protection Clause. See id. at 493-94, 109 S.Ct. 706; see also Black Fire Fighters Ass'n v. City of Dallas, 19 F.3d 992, 995 n. 6 (5th Cir.1994) (explaining that this standard applies to consent decrees). Strict scrutiny review demands that a race-conscious measure be (1) justified by a compelling government interest and (2) narrowly tailored to further that interest. Police Ass'n ex rel. Cannatella v. City of New Orleans, 100 F.3d 1159, 1167 (5th Cir.1996).

1. Compelling Interest

It is well settled that the government has a compelling interest in remedying its own past discrimination. See United States v. Paradise, 480 U.S. 149, 167, 107 S.Ct. 1053, 94 L.Ed.2d 203 (1987). However, a general assertion of past societal discrimination is insufficient. See Croson, 488 U.S. at 499, 109 S.Ct. 706. Rather, the government must justify its action with a showing of past discrimination by the governmental unit seeking to use the race-conscious remedy. See id. at 495-97, 109 S.Ct. 706; see also Wygant v. Jackson Bd. of Educ., 476 U.S. 267, 276, 106 S.Ct. 1842, 90 L.Ed.2d 260 (1986); Police Ass'n, 100 F.3d at 1168.

The Supreme Court has offered little guidance as to how much evidence of past discrimination is required. Id. However, "[t]here is no doubt that `[w]here gross statistical disparities can be shown, they alone in a proper case may constitute prima facie proof of a pattern or practice of discrimination.'" Croson, 488 U.S. at 501, 109 S.Ct. 706 (alteration in original) (quoting Hazelwood Sch. Dist. v. United States, 433 U.S. 299, 307-08, 97 S.Ct. 2736, 53 L.Ed.2d 768 (1977)). The relevant statistical comparison is between the number of minorities in the work force of the governmental unit and "the number of minorities qualified to undertake the particular task." See Croson, 488 U.S. at 502, 109 S.Ct. 706.

Appellants argue that even in 1980, the City had no compelling interest to justify the decree or a race-conscious hiring process. Appellants point out that the decree is not based on any formal factual finding of past discrimination. Further, the City's hiring process was adopted solely to comply with the goals of the decree. Appellants urge us to hold that a governmental unit may use a race-conscious remedy only after a formal judicial, legislative, or administrative finding of past discrimination. The City maintains that in 1980 it clearly had a compelling interest. The City concedes that a formal finding...