Also known as: race neutral · raceneutral · color-blind
Written by attorneys — see sources below.
A criterion, explanation, or policy that avoids any consideration of or reliance upon an individual's race. Such a measure satisfies constitutional requirements when a governmental actor must rebut a prima facie showing of racial discrimination by demonstrating that its action rests on grounds unrelated to race.
Raymond Ramos, a Black defendant on trial for robbery, objects when the prosecutor strikes the only two Black venire members. The prosecutor states that both jurors work night shifts and appeared inattentive during voir dire. The trial court accepts the explanation as unrelated to race and seats the jury.
Maria Lopez, a Black employee, is denied a promotion after missing work under a uniformly enforced no-excuse attendance policy. She claims the policy has a disparate racial impact. The court upholds the denial because the rule is race-neutral on its face and applies without regard to any individual's race.
Regina Robinson's children are denied assignment to their preferred Seattle high school under a plan that uses race as a tiebreaker when schools are oversubscribed. The district claims the plan promotes diversity. The Court holds that the explicit racial classification fails strict scrutiny because the district did not seriously consider workable alternatives that do not classify by race.
In the late 1990s the Seattle School District No. 1 adopted a student assignment plan for its ten regular public high schools. Incoming ninth graders ranked preferences among schools. The district applied a series of tiebreakers when schools were oversubscribed. The second tiebreaker classified students as white or nonwhite. It selected students whose race would bring an integration-positive school within ten percentage points of the district-wide balance of 41 percent white and 59 percent nonwhite. The plan affected assignments at five oversubscribed schools in the 2000-2001 school year. Petitioner Parents Involved in Community Schools filed suit in the Western District of Washington in July 2000 alleging violations of the Equal Protection Clause. Jefferson County Public Schools had been under a 1975 federal desegregation decree. The decree was dissolved in 2000 after a finding of unitary status. The district adopted a voluntary assignment plan in 2001. The plan required all nonmagnet schools to maintain black enrollment between 15 and 50 percent. The plan grouped elementary schools into clusters. It assigned kindergartners and new students within clusters according to space and racial guidelines. It denied transfer requests that would push a school outside the guidelines. Approximately 34 percent of the district's 97,000 students were black. When Crystal Meredith moved into the district in August 2002 she sought to enroll her son Joshua in kindergarten at Bloom Elementary one mile from their home. The district denied the intercluster transfer from Young Elementary because it would adversely affect desegregation compliance at Young which was then 46.8 percent black. Meredith filed suit in the Western District of Kentucky alleging an Equal Protection violation. The Seattle District Court granted summary judgment to the district in 2001. The Ninth Circuit en banc affirmed the federal constitutional ruling in 2005. The District Court found that Jefferson County had asserted a compelling interest in maintaining racially diverse schools, and that the assignment plan was in all relevant respects narrowly tailored to serve that compelling interest. The Sixth Circuit affirmed in a per curiam opinion relying upon the reasoning of the District Court. The Supreme Court granted certiorari in both cases in 2006.
View caseRiley Rivera, a white applicant denied admission to the University of Texas, challenges the school's use of race in holistic review. The university demonstrates that it continually evaluates whether race-neutral methods such as percentage plans or increased outreach could achieve sufficient diversity. The Court remands for determination whether those alternatives were adequately considered.
Abigail Fisher, a Caucasian applicant, was denied admission to the University of Texas at Austin's 2008 entering class after submitting one of 29,501 applications, of which 12,843 were admitted and 6,715 enrolled. Fisher sued the University and school officials in the United States District Court for the Western District of Texas, alleging that the University's consideration of race in admissions violated the Equal Protection Clause. The parties cross-moved for summary judgment. The District Court granted summary judgment to the University. The United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit affirmed. Prior to 1997 the University considered an applicant's Academic Index reflecting test scores and high school performance along with race. After the Fifth Circuit's 1996 decision in Hopwood v. Texas, the University stopped considering race and substituted a Personal Achievement Index measuring leadership, work experience, awards, extracurricular activities, community service, and socioeconomic factors. The Texas Legislature enacted the Top Ten Percent Law granting automatic admission to the top 10 percent of students at each qualifying high school. Following this Court's decisions in Grutter v. Bollinger and Gratz v. Bollinger, the University adopted its current program in 2004. It included a student's self-identified race from five predefined categories as a component of the Personal Achievement Index score. The Proposal relied on a study of undergraduate classes with five to twenty-four students showing limited minority enrollment and on anecdotal student reports, concluding that the University lacked a critical mass of minority students. Over the dissent of seven judges the Court of Appeals denied rehearing en banc. Petitioner sought a writ of certiorari, which was granted.
View caseRosa Ruiz, a white applicant, is denied admission to the University of California Davis medical school under a program that reserves sixteen seats exclusively for minority applicants. The Court holds that the rigid racial quota violates equal protection because it precludes individualized consideration and because the school failed to show that race-neutral alternatives could not achieve diversity.
The Medical School of the University of California at Davis opened in 1968 with an entering class of 50 students. In 1971 the size of the entering class was increased to 100 students, a level at which it remains. The first class contained three Asians but no blacks, no Mexican-Americans, and no American Indians. Over the next two years the faculty devised a special admissions program to increase the representation of disadvantaged students in each Medical School class. The special program consisted of a separate admissions system operating in coordination with the regular admissions process. Under the regular admissions procedure candidates whose overall undergraduate grade point averages fell below 2.5 on a scale of 4.0 were summarily rejected. About one out of six applicants was invited for a personal interview. Following the interviews each candidate was rated on a scale of 1 to 100 by his interviewers and four other members of the admissions committee. The ratings were added together to arrive at each candidate's benchmark score. Since five committee members rated each candidate in 1973 a perfect score was 500. In 1974 six members rated each candidate so that a perfect score was 600. The full committee then reviewed the file and scores of each applicant and made offers of admission on a rolling basis. The special admissions program operated with a separate committee a majority of whom were members of minority groups. Special candidates did not have to meet the 2.5 grade point average cutoff applied to regular applicants. The special committee continued to recommend special applicants until a number prescribed by faculty vote were admitted. While the overall class size was still 50 the prescribed number was 8. In 1973 and 1974 when the class size had doubled to 100 the prescribed number of special admissions also doubled to 16. From the year of the increase in class size through 1974 the special program resulted in the admission of 21 black students 30 Mexican-Americans and 12 Asians for a total of 63 minority students. Over the same period the regular admissions program produced 1 black 6 Mexican-Americans and 37 Asians for a total of 44 minority students. Although disadvantaged whites applied to the special program in large numbers none received an offer of admission through that process. Allan Bakke is a white male who applied to the Davis Medical School in both 1973 and 1974. Despite a strong benchmark score of 468 out of 500 Bakke was rejected. His total was 549 out of 600. Again Bakke's application was rejected. In both years applicants were admitted under the special program with grade point averages MCAT scores and benchmark scores significantly lower than Bakke's. After the second rejection Bakke filed the instant suit in the Superior Court of California. He sought mandatory injunctive and declaratory relief compelling his admission to the Medical School. He alleged that the Medical School's special admissions program operated to exclude him from the school on the basis of his race in violation of his rights under the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment Art. I § 21 of the California Constitution and § 601 of Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 42 U.S.C. § 2000d. The trial court found that the special program operated as a racial quota because minority applicants in the special program were rated only against one another and 16 places in the class of 100 were reserved for them. The court refused to order Bakke's admission however holding that he had failed to carry his burden of proving that he would have been admitted but for the existence of the special program. The California court accepted the findings of the trial court with respect to the University's program. On this basis the court initially ordered a remand for the purpose of determining whether under the newly allocated burden of proof Bakke would have been admitted to either the 1973 or the 1974 entering class in the absence of the special admissions program. In its petition for rehearing below however the University conceded its inability to carry that burden. The California court thereupon amended its opinion to direct that the trial court enter judgment ordering Bakke's admission to the Medical School. The Supreme Court granted certiorari to consider the important constitutional issue.
View caseRoland Rhodes and other white firefighters who passed a promotion exam sue after the city discards the results because no Black candidates scored high enough. The city claims concern over disparate impact liability. The Court holds that the city must have a strong basis in evidence of an actual violation before it may engage in race-conscious action to avoid that liability.
In 2003, the City of New Haven hired Industrial/Organizational Solutions, Inc. to develop and administer promotional examinations for lieutenant and captain positions in its fire department pursuant to a collective-bargaining agreement that required a written component weighted at 60 percent and an oral component weighted at 40 percent. IOS performed job analyses that deliberately oversampled minority firefighters to avoid unintentional bias favoring white candidates. The examinations were administered in November and December 2003. Seventy-seven candidates completed the lieutenant examination. Forty-one candidates completed the captain examination. The results showed pass rates of 58.1 percent for white candidates, 31.6 percent for Hispanic candidates, and 31.6 percent for black candidates on the lieutenant exam. Pass rates on the captain exam were 64.3 percent for white candidates, 37.5 percent for Hispanic candidates, and 0 percent for black candidates. Under the rule of three, the top ten candidates eligible for lieutenant promotion were all white. The top nine candidates eligible for captain promotion were seven whites and two Hispanics. After the results were released, the City held five public hearings before its Civil Service Board between January and March 2004. At those hearings, IOS vice president Chad Legel described the test-development process. Testing consultant Christopher Hornick criticized the 60/40 weighting and recommended assessment centers. Retired fire captain Vincent Lewis reviewed the content. Boston College professor Janet Helms discussed possible cultural bias in the job-analysis questionnaires. City officials including corporation counsel Thomas Ude and human-resources director Tina Burgett urged non-certification on the ground that the statistical disparity would expose the City to liability. Several candidates who had passed the exams urged certification. The Board deadlocked 2-2 and declined to certify the results. Seventeen white firefighters and one Hispanic firefighter who had passed the examinations sued the City, Mayor John DeStefano, and other officials in the United States District Court for the District of Connecticut, alleging violations of Title VII and the Equal Protection Clause. The District Court granted summary judgment for the defendants. The Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit affirmed in a per curiam opinion. The Supreme Court granted certiorari.
View caseA defendant establishes a prima facie case by showing that the prosecutor exercised peremptory challenges to remove members of a cognizable racial group and that the circumstances raise an inference of purposeful discrimination. Once the prima facie case is made, the burden shifts to the striking party to articulate a race-neutral explanation for each strike.
The explanation need not be persuasive or even plausible at the second step. It must simply be race-neutral on its face. The trial court then determines at the third step whether the opponent has proved purposeful discrimination, often by assessing whether the stated reason is pretextual.
A university must show that race-neutral alternatives would not produce the educational benefits of diversity. Narrow tailoring requires serious, good-faith consideration of such alternatives, and the university bears the burden of proving that race is necessary to achieve its diversity goals.
…to this case necessarily be incompatible with our equal protection cases. Cf. Rogers v. Lodge , 458 U. S. 613, 618 (1982) (race-neutral law that “‘bears more heavily on one race than another’” may violate equal protection) (citation omitted); Castaneda v. Partida , 430 U. S. 482, 492-495 (1977) (grand jury selection). We…