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Morton v. Mancari - Significance, Preferences And The Fifth Amendment, Native Americans Not Ethnic, Impact

Appellant

Rogers Clark Morton, U.S. Secretary of Interior

Appellee

Mancari, et al.

Appellant's Claim

That the federal government's use of Native American preferences in personnel decisions did not violate equal protection under the Due Process Clause of the Fifth Amendment.

Chief Lawyer for Appellant

Harry R. Sachse

Chief Lawyer for Appellee

Gene E. Franchini

Justices for the Court

Harry A. Blackmun (writing for the Court), William J. Brennan, Jr., Warren E. Burger, William O. Douglas, Thurgood Marshall, Lewis F. Powell, Jr., William H. Rehnquist, Potter Stewart, Byron R. White

Justices Dissenting

None

Place

Washington, D.C.

Date of Decision

17 June 1974

Decision

Upheld the United States' claim and overturned a lower court's decision prohibiting use of Native American preferences in governmental personnel hiring and job promotion practices.

Related Cases

  • Board of County Commissioners v. Seber, 318 U.S. 705 (1943).
  • United States v. Antelope, 430 U.S. 641 (1977).
  • County of Oneida v. Oneida Indian Nation, 470 U.S. 226 (1985).
  • Traynor v. Turnage, 485 U.S. 535 (1988).

Further Readings

  • Getches, David H., Charles F. Wilkinson, and Robert A. Williams, Jr. Cases and Materials on Federal Indian Law, 3rd ed. St. Paul, MN: West Publishing Co., 1993.
  • Williams, David C. "The Borders of the Equal Protection Clause: Indians as Peoples." U.C.L.A. Law Review, Vol. 38, 1991, pp. 759-870.

Additional Topics

Morton v. Mancari - Significance

The ruling established that Native American Indians can be treated differently from other U.S. citizens by the federal government despite antidiscrimination laws. Members of tribes may be considered political rather than racial groups on occasions when the U.S. government bases its actions on long-standing legal responsibilities to protect Native American interests and promote tribal self-governme…

Morton v. Mancari - Preferences And The Fifth Amendment

Shortly after introduction of the new BIA promotion policy and passage of the EEO Act, several non-Native American employees of the BIA office in Albuquerque, New Mexico, including Mancari, filed a class action suit in the U.S. District Court for the District of New Mexico on behalf of themselves and other non-Native employees. The suit named as defendants the secretary of the interior, the commis…

Morton v. Mancari - Native Americans Not Ethnic

Justice Blackmun, writing for a unanimous Court, found the lower court erred on both issues regarding the implications of the EEO Act and Fifth Amendment application. First, the Court determined that Congress did not intend to repeal Native American preference with the 1972 EEO Act. Blackmun highlighted two specific sections of Title VII of the 1964 Civil Rights Act explicitly exempting from its c…

Morton v. Mancari - Impact

Mancari was the first time the Supreme Court considered the question of how Native Americans, who commonly are treated as ethnic groups in many circumstances in U.S. society, could receive special treatment by the government without that treatment being considered racial discrimination. In applying a newly created "rational basis" test to Native American preference, the Court unanimously found tha…

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