Minnick v. California Department of Corrections

• Citation: 68 L.Ed.2d 706,452 U.S. 105,101 S.Ct. 2211
• Decision Date: 01 June 1981
• Docket Number: No. 79-1213,79-1213
• Parties: Wayne MINNICK et al., Petitioners, v. CALIFORNIA DEPARTMENT OF CORRECTIONS et al
• Court: United States Supreme Court

452 U.S. 105

101 S.Ct. 2211

68 L.Ed.2d 706

Wayne MINNICK et al., Petitioners,

v CALIFORNIA DEPARTMENT OF CORRECTIONS et al.

No. 79-1213.

Argued Dec. 2, 1980.

Decided June 1, 1981.

Syllabus

Petitioners, two white male correctional officers employed by the California Department of Corrections and an organization representing correctional officers and some other Department employees, filed suit in California state court against respondents, the Department and various state officers, alleging that the Department's affirmative-action plan unlawfully discriminated against white males and that the individual petitioners had been denied promotions because of race. On the basis of the California Supreme Court's decision in Bakke v. University of California Regents, 18 Cal.3d 34, 132 Cal.Rptr. 680, 553 P.2d 1152, the trial court enjoined respondents from giving any preference on the basis of race or sex in hiring or promoting any employee, but allowed the use of race or sex as a factor in making job assignments. On respondents' appeal, the California Court of Appeal reversed, holding that the trial court's rationale was no longer tenable in view of this Court's intervening decision in University of California Regents v. Bakke, 438 U.S. 265, 98 S.Ct. 2733, 57 L.Ed.2d 750. However, the Court of Appeal did not unequivocally direct that judgment be entered for respondents, but left certain questions open for "examination if the case is to be retried."

Held : This Court's writ of certiorari, granted to review the merits of the Court of Appeal's decision, is dismissed. Because of significant developments in the law and because of significant ambiguities in the record concerning both the extent to which race or sex has been used as a factor in making promotions and the justification for such use, the constitutional issues should not be addressed until the trial court's proceedings are finally concluded and the state appellate courts have completed their review of the trial court record. Pp. 120-127.

Certiorari dismissed. Reported below: 95 Cal.App.3d 506, 157 Cal.Rptr. 260.

Ronald Yank, San Francisco, Cal., for petitioners.

Stuart R. Pollak, San Francisco, Cal., for respondents.

Justice STEVENS delivered the opinion of the Court.

Petitioners contend that an affirmative-action plan adopted by the California Department of Corrections in 1974 is unconstitutional under the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. The trial court agreed and entered judgment in petitioners' favor. The California Court of Appeal reversed, 95 Cal.App.3d 506, 157 Cal.Rptr. 260, holding that the trial court's rationale was no longer tenable in light of this Court's intervening decision in University of California Regents v. Bakke, 438 U.S. 265, 98 S.Ct. 2733, 57 L.Ed.2d 750. The Court of Appeal's opinion, however, also identified certain problems that "require examination if the case is to be retried." Thus although we granted certiorari to review the merits of the Court of Appeal's decision, 448 U.S. 910, 100 S.Ct. 3055, 65 L.Ed.2d 1139, we first must confront the question whether the writ should be dismissed because the judgment did not finally determine the legal status of the challenged plan.

I

The 1974 "Affirmative Action Program," as revised in 1975, is a lengthy and somewhat ambiguous document. Much of the plan relates to the Department's commitment to the eradication of discrimination on the basis of race and sex. The plan's first section, which describes the program in general terms, states:

"It is the policy of the Department of Corrections to provide equal employment opportunities for all persons on the basis of merit and fitness and to prohibit discrimination based on race, sex, color, religion, national origin, or ancestry in every aspect of personnel policy and practices in the employment, career development, advancement and treatment of employees." ¹

This section of the plan then identifies specific means of implementing this general nondiscriminatory policy.² The second section of the plan, which establishes guidelines for the implementation of the program within the existing organizational structure and defines the affirmative-action roles of Department employees, also contains a number of provisions suggesting that the plan was intended to remove any barriers to equal employment opportunities.³ Finally, the third section, which identifies specific objectives of the plan, also refers to departmental efforts to eliminate discrimination in hiring and in employment practices.⁴

The plan does, however, contain some indication that the Department intended to go beyond the eradication of discriminatory practices. The second section states that deputy directors, assistant directors, and division chiefs were to be responsible for developing a plan to "correct identifiable . . . deficiencies through specific, measurable, attainable hiring and promotional goals with target dates in each area of underutilization." ⁵ The plan also refers to "guidelines" issued by the Law Enforcement Assistance Administration of the United States Department of Justice (LEAA) indicating "that an Agency's percentage of minority personnel should be at least 70% of that minority in its service (inmate population)." ⁶ Moreover, the plan notes that in "the total labor force in California, 38.1% are female; Department of Corrections' personnel reflect a total of only 17.3%." ⁷ The section of the plan containing objectives indicates a commitment by the Department to "[i]ncrease departmental efforts to employ minorities and women to achieve the percentages . . . per LEAA guidelines within five (5) years," and to achieve a work force containing 36% minorities and 38% women.⁸ The plan does not identify what means, in addition to eradicating discriminatory practices, the Department would employ to achieve these percentages. Thus, the plan may be interpreted as predicting that a nondiscriminatory policy would result in a work force including 36% minority and 38% female employees by 1979; alternatively, it may be read as mandating affirmative action to achieve these percentages by the target date.⁹

II

In December 1975 the three petitioners commenced this litigation in a California Superior Court. Minnick and Darden, the individual petitioners, are white male correctional officers. The third petitioner, the California Correction Officers Association (CCOA), is an employee organization that represents correctional officers and some other employees of the Department. In their complaint petitioners alleged that the affirmative-action plan unlawfully discriminated against white males and that the individual petitioners had been denied promotions because they were white.

The California Department of Corrections and various state officers named as defendants, respondents here, denied in the trial court that they had discriminated in hiring and promotion and claimed that the Department's central policy was to hire and promote only the most qualified persons.¹⁰ Alternatively, however, the respondents contended that the State's interest in the efficient and safe operation of the corrections system justifies an attempt to obtain a work force containing a proportion of minority employees amounting to at least 70% of any minority's proportional representation in the inmate population, and also containing as large a percentage of female employees as are found in the total California work force.¹¹ During pretrial discovery, respondents also indicated that the impact of their past practices had resulted in a disproportionate hiring and promotion of white males, but stated "for the purposes of this litigation" that they did not allege that the Department had engaged in any past intentional discrimination against minority or female workers.¹²

After a trial at which over 30 witnesses testified, the case was argued at length and submitted to the trial judge for decision on November 23, 1976. At that time the Supreme Court of California had only recently held in Bakke v. University of California Regents, 18 Cal.3d 34, 132 Cal.Rptr. 680, 553 P.2d 1152 (1976), that the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution prohibited a state university from giving any consideration to an applicant's race in making admissions decisions.

On January 5, 1977, the trial judge issued a "notice of intended decision" which tersely summarized the parties' respective positions:

"The testimony and documentary evidence herein show, and defendants admit, that defendants have carried on a campaign to, and they do now, select applicants for employment and for promotion based on their sex and on their racial background or ancestry.

"Defendants seek to justify their actions on the basis that while the sex of an applicant is one of the factors considered, the applicant must be otherwise qualified for the duties to be performed. Sex or racial background is not the sole factor considered. Plaintiffs on the other hand assert that the hiring or promotion of a person based in whole or in part on sex or racial background or ancestry is unconstitutional and void.

"The Court agrees with plaintiffs." App. to Pet. for Cert. D-1--D-2.

The notice then directed that an injunction issue enjoining the respondents "from considering as a factor for employment or for the promotion of a candidate his sex, race or na- tional origin." Id., at D-2. The court directed counsel to prepare an appropriate order and to submit proposed findings of fact and conclusions of law.

Before any further order was entered, respondents filed a motion to reopen the record and to receive detailed evidence of past discriminatory practices.¹³ Presumably the proffered evidence would provide support for a defense based on the theory that the plan was justified as a remedy for past discrimination. The evidence was, however, quite plainly irrelevant to the theory of the trial judge's intended...