United Steelworkers of America v. Weber

The case went before the Supreme Court along with two related cases, Kaiser Aluminum & Chemical Corp. v. Weber et al. and United States et al. v. Weber et al. These were attended by a flurry of amici curiae (friend of the court) briefs on both sides. Weighing in for the petitioners, the USWA, were groups such as the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), and a number of other unions. Clearly the case had generated a great deal of attention in the legal community, and among the attorneys filing briefs on the side of the petitioners were at least two who would become well-known in later decades: Vernon Jordan for the NAACP, and Gloria Allred for the Women's Equal Rights Legal Defense and Education Fund. A much smaller group filed briefs on the side of the respondent, Weber, among them the California Correctional Officers Association, the Southeastern Legal Foundation, and the United States Justice Foundation.

After hearing arguments on 28 March 1979, the Supreme Court on 27 June reversed the ruling of the lower courts by a vote of 5-2. Writing for a majority that included Justices Stewart, White, Marshall, Blackmun, and himself, Justice Brennan held that neither 703(a) or (d) prohibited race-based affirmative action programs entered into on a voluntary basis by private parties such as the USWA and Kaiser Aluminum.

Weber's case had relied on a literal interpretation of the Court's earlier ruling in McDonald v. Santa Fe Trail Transp. Co. (1976), a reliance which the Court found was "misplaced." In McDonald, a case which did not involve affirmative action, the Court had ruled that Title VII did indeed protect whites as well as African Americans from certain forms of racial discrimination. But the situation in Weber was different, Brennan argued, because Kaiser and USWA had entered into their agreement on a voluntary basis.

Furthermore, the Court held, a closer look at 703(a) and (d) revealed that any interpretation of Title VII which completely eliminated race-based preferences would produce a result "completely at variance with the purpose of the statute." Given the fact that Congress's interest in enacting Title VII had resulted from concern over "the plight of the Negro in our economy," it should be clear that the language in it "was primarily addressed to the problem of opening opportunities for Negroes in occupations which have been traditionally closed to them." Brennan reinforced his finding on 703(a) and (d) by citing 703(j), which stated that Title VII "shall not be interpreted to require any employer . . . to grant preferential treatment . . . to any group because of . . . race." Race-based preference programs, then, were not to be required--but they could be permitted.

Justice Blackmun filed a concurring opinion. In it he stated that "additional considerations . . . support the conclusion reached by the Court today." He cited the dissent of Judge Wisdom on the court of appeals, who held that past imbalances in its workforce indicated an "arguable violation" of Title VII on the part of Kaiser Aluminum; hence the affirmative action plan was a "reasonable response." Blackmun favored this more narrow approach, and in spite of agreement with some of the misgivings stated by the dissenters, concurred with the opinion of the majority.