Board of Education of City School District of City of New York v. Harris
| Citation | 444 U.S. 130,62 L.Ed.2d 275,100 S.Ct. 363 |
| Decision Date | 28 November 1979 |
| Docket Number | No. 78-873,78-873 |
| Parties | BOARD OF EDUCATION OF the CITY SCHOOL DISTRICT OF the CITY OF NEW YORK et al., Petitioners, v. Patricia Roberts HARRIS, Secretary of Health, Education, and Welfare, et al |
| Court | United States Supreme Court |
Section 702(b) of the Emergency School Aid Act (ESAA or Act) states that the Act's purpose is to provide federal financial assistance "to meet the special needs incident to the elimination of minority group segregation and discrimination among students and faculty in elementary and secondary schools," to encourage "the voluntary elimination, reduction, or prevention of minority group isolation" in such schools, and to aid schoolchildren "in overcoming the educational disadvantages of minority group isolation." Section 703 pronounces as federal policy that guidelines and criteria established pursuant to the Act should "be applied uniformly in all regions of the United States." And § 706(d)(1)(B) declares an educational agency ineligible for assistance if, after the date of the Act, it had in effect any practice "which results in the disproportionate demotion or dismissal of instructional or other personnel from minority groups" or "otherwise engage[s] in discrimination . . . in the hiring, promotion, or assignment of employees." Petitioner Board of Education's applications for ESAA assistance were denied by the Department of Health, Education, and Welfare (HEW), based upon statistical evidence flowing from a compliance investigation under Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and showing a pattern of racially disproportionate assignments of minority teachers in the school system in relation to the number of minority students enrolled at the respective schools. No substantive rebuttal or explanation for the statistical disparities was presented. Petitioner Board then brought suit in District Court for declaratory and injunctive relief, claiming that the racially disproportionate teacher assignments resulted from provisions of state law, provisions of collective-bargaining agreements, licensing requirements for particular teaching positions, a bilingual-instruction consent decree, and demographic changes in student population. The District Court concluded that HEW should have considered these proffered justifications for the statistical disparities, and remanded the case to HEW for further consideration. On remand, HEW determined that such justifications did not adequately rebut the prima facie evidence of discrimination established by the statistics, and the District Court upheld HEW's finding of ineligibility and denied relief. The Court of Appeals affirmed, rejecting petitioner Board's contention that HEW was required to establish that the statistical disparities resulted from purposeful or intentional discrimination in the constitutional sense.
Held:
1. Discriminatory impact is the standard by which ineligibility under ESAA is to be measured, irrespective of whether the discrimination relates to "demotion or dismissal of instructional or other personnel" or to "the hiring, promotion, or assignment of employees." The overall structure of the Act, Congress' statements of purpose and policy in §§ 702 and 703, the legislative history, and the text of § 706(d)(1)(B) all point in the direction of such a disparate-impact test. To treat as ineligible only an applicant with a past or a conscious present intent to perpetuate racial isolation would defeat the stated objective of ending de facto as well as de jure segregation. Pp. 140-150.
2. A prima facie case of discriminatory impact may be made by a proper statistical study. The burden of rebutting such a statistical case is on the petitioner Board. P. 151.
2 Cir., 584 F.2d 576, affirmed.
Joseph F. Bruno, New York City, for petitioners.
Sol. Gen., Wade H. McCree, Jr., Washington, D. C., for respondents.
This case presents a narrow, but important, issue of statutory interpretation. It concerns a school district's eligibility for federal financial assistance under the 1972 Emergency School Aid Act (ESAA or Act), 86 Stat. 354, as amended, 20 U.S.C. §§ 1601-1619.1 Because the federal funds available under the Act are limited, educational agencies compete for those funds.
By § 702(a) of the Act, 86 Stat. 354, 20 U.S.C. § 1601(a), Congress found "that the process of eliminating or preventing minority group isolation and improving the quality of education for all children often involves the expenditure of additional funds to which local educational agencies do not have access." Accordingly, in § 702(b), Congress stated that the purpose of the legislation was to provide financial assistance "to meet the special needs incident to the elimination of minority group segregation and discrimination among students and faculty in elementary and secondary schools," to encourage "the voluntary elimination, reduction, or prevention of minority group isolation" in such schools, and to aid schoolchildren "in overcoming the educational disadvantages of minority group isolation." Section 703 pronounced as United States policy that guidelines and criteria established pursuant to the Act should "be applied uniformly in all regions of the United States." And, by § 706(d)(1), an educational agency was expressly declared ineligible for assistance if, after the date of the Act (June 23, 1972), it
"(B) had in effect any practice, policy, or procedure which results in the disproportionate demotion or dismissal of instructional or other personnel from minority groups in conjunction with desegregation or the implementation of any plan or the conduct of any activity described in this section, or otherwise engaged in discrimination based upon race, color, or national origin in the hiring, promotion, or assignment of employees of the agency." 2
The Act, in § 710(a), provides that an agency desiring to receive assistance for a fiscal year shall submit an application "at such time, in such form, and containing such information" as the Assistant Secretary for Education of the Department of Health, Education, and Welfare (HEW) "shall require by regulation." The application is then reviewed by that office and is ranked according to criteria set out in § 710(c), as implemented by regulation. See 45 CFR § 185.14 (1978). The essential first step is a determination 3 that the applicant is not ineligible under § 706(d)(1). This determination is made initially by HEW's Office for Civil Rights. The burden, presumably, is on the applicant to establish its eligibility.
Petitioner Board of Education of the City School District of the City of New York filed three applications for ESAA assistance for the fiscal year 1977-1978. Its revised Basic Grant Application, the only one now at issue, was given a sufficiently favorable ranking so as initially to be considered for funding in the amount of $3,559,132. On July 1, 1977, however, HEW by letter informed the Board that it did not meet the Act's eligibility requirements. App. 27. In line with the provisions of 45 CFR § 185.46(b) (1978), an informal meeting was held on July 22. Although HEW then withdrew some of its adverse findings, it still concluded that the Board had not demonstrated a sufficient basis for revocation of its determination of ineligibility. HEW reasoned that, in the language of 45 CFR § 185.43(b)(2) (1978), the Board's "assignment of full-time classroom teachers to [its] schools [was] in such a manner as to identify [one or more] of such schools as intended for students of a particular race, color, or national origin."
The ineligibility determination rested upon statistics developed by HEW's Office for Civil Rights during a 1976 compliance investigation of the Board's school system under Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, 78 Stat. 252, 42 U.S.C. § 2000d et seq. From these statistics, HEW concluded that it was possible to identify a number of schools as intended for either minority or nonminority students, solely because of the composition of the faculties. The statistics revealed that, during the 1975-1976 school year, 62.6% of high school pupils were members of a minority, but only 8.3% of high school teachers were minority members. Further, 70% of the minority high school teachers were assigned to schools at which the minority student enrollments exceeded 76%. Conversely, in those high schools where minority student enrollments were less than 40%, there was a disproportionately low percentage of minority teachers. App. 29, 42-43.
The statistical study showed like patterns at the junior high and elementary levels. The percentage of minority junior high teachers was 16.7, and these teachers were concentrated in districts with the highest percentages of minority students. Id., at 29. For the elementary schools, the citywide percentage of minority teachers was 14.3, and these were placed primarily in districts with the largest minority student enrollments. Id., at 28-29. HEW also relied upon findings it had made earlier that the Board was in violation of Title VI of the 1964 Act.
At the informal meeting of July 22, HEW limited its inquiry to the accuracy of the statistics upon which it had rested its decision to deny funding. No substantive rebuttal or explanation for the statistical disparities was presented. On September 16, 1977, HEW issued its formal opinion adhering to its decision of July 1 to deny funding. Brief for Petitioners 8.
The present action then was promptly instituted in the United States District Court for the Eastern District of New York to obtain declaratory relief, to enjoin HEW from enforcing its determination of ineligibility, and to award the initially earmarked funds to the Board.4 The complaint contained no challenge to the accuracy or sufficiency of HEW's statistics. Rather, petitioner Board took the position that the racially disproportionate teacher...
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