Find Legal Information

In 1975, a federal district court found the Local 28 of the Sheet Metal Workers Union guilty of racial discrimination in violation of Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. The court established a 29 percent minority membership goal and ordered the union to implement procedures to meet the goal. In 1982 and 1983, the union was found guilty of civil contempt for disobeying the court orders. The court then established a 29.23 percent nonwhite membership goal to be met by August 1987.

Did provisions of Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 empower courts to order race-conscious membership quotas?

The Court held that Title VII did not prohibit courts from ordering, in appropriate circumstances, affirmative race-conscious relief as a remedy for past discrimination. Specifically, the Court held that such relief was appropriate where employers or labor unions had engaged in "persistent or egregious discrimination, or where necessary to dissipate the lingering effects of pervasive discrimination." The Court noted that injunctions simply reiterating Title VII's prohibition against discrimination were useless in cases of chronically discriminatory employers or unions.