Personnel Administrator v. Feeney

Appellee Feeney claimed that the Massachusetts Veteran's Preference Statute violated the equal protection of women in the workplace. The district court reaffirmed a lower court ruling in favor of appellee; thus, the U.S. Supreme Court was presented with the opportunity to determine if veteran-preference statutes did "in granting an absolute lifetime preference to veterans," discriminate "against women in violation of the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment." While, statistically, such provisions were extended to a significantly low number of female veterans, the Court concluded that no discriminatory intent existed because the preference was extended to a non-gender based class that included applicants of both sexes.

The appellee, Helen B. Feeney, worked for about 12 years as an employee in the Massachusetts state civil service. In 1971, she succeeded in passing competitive examinations for a state government job. Her scores were remarkably good but because she was not a veteran, she was not included in the "eligible list" of applicants. Because of their eligibility for hiring preference, veterans who had scored below her in the civil service exams were place above her in the final, overall ranking of applicants. Two years later, when Feeney retested, she was again eliminated from the eligible list. Concluding that her efforts to get a better job in the state domain were frustrated because of hiring preferences to veterans, she decided to litigate that issue on the basis that the Massachusetts statute promoted gender discrimination against women. Feeney claimed that the preference extended to veterans made it almost impossible for her to get the same chance for appointment to official civil positions and thus, unfairly, decreased her employment opportunities. Its existence discriminated against women under the equal protection provisions of the Fourteenth Amendment and the statute's "absolute-preference formula" was unacceptable because it not only diminished employment opportunities, but also, in effect, excluded women from serving in the best Massachusetts civil jobs.

The district court decided in favor of the appellee. They recognized the essential importance of the veterans' preference statute but held that, nonetheless, the result of such beneficial treatment caused a severe, negative impact on female applicants. The ruling of the district court held that Massachusetts should find a less intrusive way to provide veterans the benefits that they deserved.

The Attorney General of Massachusetts appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court. On the basis of a previous Court ruling in Washington v. Davis (1976), the Court vacated the lower court's judgment. In remanding remanded the case back for reconsideration, the district court was reminded that any "disproportionate impact" of a neutral law like that pertaining to veterans-hiring preferences, "must be traced to a purpose to discriminate on the basis of race."

On reconsideration, the district court showed its resolve to seek specific guidance from the higher court with respect to language contained in state statutes which seemed to establish class preferences which, tacitly, discriminated by gender. Again, the court found veterans' hiring preferences to be essentially non-neutral. Women were traditionally excluded from the class (veterans) which typically benefited under the preference statute and, therefore, the outcome of its effect could not be considered "unintended." Again, the Massachusetts Attorney General appealed the lower court's decision to the U.S. Supreme Court.

The majority of Supreme Court justices again elected to reverse the lower court's judgment. They found no violation of equal protection standards and no discriminatory intent under the Massachusetts Veterans' Preference Statute. The majority opinion explained that Massachusetts' hiring preference was open for all people "honorably discharged from the United States Armed Forces" who served actively at least 3 months or at least one day during "wartime." Moreover the statute made possible for citizens of this category, "any person, male or female, including a nurse," to benefit by being placed ahead of non-veteran social categories. Although the appellee scored better than individuals from the category of veterans, her claim that the statute promoted gender-based preference was not a viable argument because statutory preferences advanced "legitimate and worthy purposes." The Court recognized a long-established, legitimate, national practice to reward veterans for their devotion to their country through military service.

The justices conceded that it was not unusual that such benefits were sometimes characterized as male-oriented since women represented a smaller portion of the veteran population. The Court also conceded that there were many laws which have a different impact on particular categories of society. However, the existence of such laws did not mean that their intent was to legislate bias in favor of privileged groups and at the expense of non-favored groups. Constitutional protection was not at issue in cases wherein laws, based on rational principles, resulted in uneven effects on certain groups within a class. If legislation of a law was based upon valid, logical standards, its validity could not be questioned by relying on another legal paradigm, for example race; instead, a litigant needed to offer argument, rationale, and evidence that specific discrimination had occurred. In citing Washington v. Davis and Arlington Heights v. Metropolitan Housing Corp. (1977), the majority justices stated that "even if a neutral law has a disproportionately adverse effect upon a racial minority, it is unconstitutional under the Equal Protection Clause only if that impact can be traced to a discriminatory purpose." Finding no such discriminatory purpose in the appellee's argument, the Court held that there was no convincing justification to invoke equal protection standards.

By emphasizing that civil employment was not a constitutional right, the Court signaled that alleged differentiation based on sex in selection of employees had to be exceedingly justified to tender a constitutional challenge under the rubric of Fourteenth Amendment equal protection. The plurality of the Court underscored the appellee's admission that the challenged statute was neutral and not gender based, and that the purpose of preferences contained therein did not necessarily represent discrimination against woman but extended hiring preferences to veterans. The Massachusetts' law, in practice, had no other intention than to distinguish between veterans and non-veterans, therefore the statute was based on a neutral classification. The justices reasoned that the appellee's claim of gender-based discrimination could not be validated to the fact that the statute was predominantly inclined to men only because fewer women were veterans. Further, language of the statute was very explicit in defining the category of veterans and was not preclusive for women who served in the military. Regularly, the statute affected a significant number of male non-veterans as or pham.

In responding to both the findings of the district court and the appellee's claim that preferences provided to veterans discriminate against women, the Supreme Court addressed different arguments. First, they found it improper to challenge the Massachusetts veterans' statute on the grounds that only a handful of women could achieve hiring preferences; the alleged discriminatory intent was non-evident because the statute gave preference only to a well-defined category of veterans. Thus, since preferences had been legislated on a neutral, nondiscriminatory basis, evidence which showed that women were most burdened by provisions of the statute was not relevant to contest sex discrimination. The justices further noted that neither was the "history of discrimination against women in the military . . . on trial in this case." Finally, addressing the appellee's contention that the consequences of the law were obvious, inevitable, and (therefore) intended, the Court explained that purposeful discrimination implied "more than intent as volition or intent as awareness of consequences." According to their ruling in United Jewish Organizations v. Carey (1977), it suggested "that the decisionmaker, in this case a state legislature, selected or reaffirmed a particular course of action at least in part `because of,' not merely `in spite of,' its adverse effects upon an identifiable group." Justices could see no original legislative intent to legalize gender discrimination by benefiting a category of veterans. Instead, the language of the Massachusetts' statute clearly defined a veteran as "any person . . . " so distinctions remained only between veterans and non-veterans, not between men and women.

Two dissenting justices noted that mere intention to discriminate was rarely clearly evident. They contended that any legislation was discriminatory which gave advantage to one group or class while excluding the possibility of another group or class reaching such an advantage. Because only two percent of the female population in Massachusetts were veterans, the method by which the state chose to benefit veterans was, therefore, not appropriate. They pointed out that even if characterized as a non-neutral statute, its provisions enabled the almost 98 male veteran population to be given preference over non-veterans, regardless of scores on the civil service exam. Thus, the legislation of a lifetime preference law favoring veterans "created a gender-based civil service hierarchy, with women occupying low-grade clerical and secretarial jobs and men holding more responsible and remunerative positions." The justices suggested that limiting the duration of absolute preference by reducing the span of time a veteran could claim preference could considerably lessen the negative consequences from the existence of such a law. As written, however, the minority justices concluded that the statute discriminated against a large number of Massachusetts women and was not constitutionally legal.