Personnel Administrator of Massachusetts v. Feeney

442 U.S. 256 (1979), argued 26 Feb. 1979, decided 5 June 1979 by vote of 7 to 2; Stewart for the Court, Marshall and Brennan in dissent. The issue in Feeney was whether a Massachusetts statute granting an absolute lifetime preference to veterans in public employment discriminated against women in violation of the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment.

The case was brought in 1975 by a female civil servant who, despite achieving higher grades on civil service examinations than male veterans, was repeatedly passed over for employment and promotion in favor of those veterans. The federal district court twice found the statute unconstitutional. The state appealed, supported in the Supreme Court by the solicitor general of the United States.

It was undisputed that more than 98 percent of the veterans in Massachusetts were male, that the veterans preference applied to approximately 60 percent of the public jobs in the state, and that its impact on public employment opportunities for women was severe. Relying on Washington v. Davis (1976) and Arlington Heights v. Metropolitan Housing Development Corp. (1977), however, the Court made clear that the constitutional standard required showing a discriminatory purpose, not merely a disproportionate impact.

Making a twofold inquiry into the legislative purpose, the Court held first that the statute was neutral and not based on gender because it drew a distinction between veterans and nonveterans, not men and women, and thus also burdened significant numbers of male nonveterans. Second, looking at the totality of legislative actions establishing and extending the statute, the Court held that its enactment did not reflect intentional gender‐based discrimination. Announcing a tough test for determining discriminatory purpose, the Court held that even if discriminatory results were forseeable, the constitutional standard required a finding that the legislature acted because of them, not merely in spite of them.

Justices Thurgood Marshall and William Brennan dissented, arguing that because the impact on women was both extreme and foreseeable, the state had the burden of establishing that gender considerations played no role in the legislation, a burden it failed to meet.

See also Discriminatory Intent; Equal Protection.

— Gerald N. Rosenberg

Personnel Administrator of Massachusetts v. Feeney, 442 U.S. 256 (1979), a Supreme Court case that considered whether a Massachusetts law giving veterans a lifetime preference in filling open civil service positions discriminated against women in violation of the equal protection clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. Helen B. Feeney was a civil servant who received higher grades on civil service examinations than male veterans. Because of the preference law, however, males repeatedly were promoted over her. Twice the federal district court declared the law unconstitutional. The state of Massachusetts, supported by the solicitor general of the United States, appealed to the Supreme Court. The Court in a seven-to-two decision sustained the law.

A basic question was whether the effect of the preference classification was "purposeful discrimination." It was generally agreed that the statute disproportionately affected women. Until 1967 there had been a 2 percent quota on women in the military. Male nonveterans, however, suffered from this preferred treatment as much as female nonveterans. Because it distinguished between veterans and nonveterans, not between women and men, the Court detected no discriminatory purpose in the statute. The opinion raised the standard for proving gender discrimination by obliging plantiffs to prove that the legislature that drafted the statute in question specifically intended the law to achieve the foreseeable discriminatory outcome.

Bibliography

Hoff, Joan. Law, Gender, and Injustice: A Legal History of U.S. Women. New York: New York University Press, 1991.

Rosenblum, Bruce E. "Discriminatory Purpose and Disproportionate Impact: An Assessment after Feeney." Columbia Law Review 79 (November 1979).