Alexander v. Sandoval
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| Alexander v. Sandoval | |||||||||||||||
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| Argued January 16, 2001 Decided April 24, 2001 |
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| Holding | |||||||||||||||
| There is no private right of action to enforce disparate-impact regulations promulgated under Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. | |||||||||||||||
| Court membership | |||||||||||||||
| Chief Justice: William Rehnquist Associate Justices: John Paul Stevens, Sandra Day O'Connor, Antonin Scalia, Anthony Kennedy, David Souter, Clarence Thomas, Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Stephen Breyer |
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| Case opinions | |||||||||||||||
| Majority by: Scalia Joined by: Rehnquist, O'Connor, Kennedy, Thomas Dissent by: Stevens Joined by: Souter, Ginsburg, Breyer |
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| Laws applied | |||||||||||||||
| Civil Rights Act of 1964, title VI | |||||||||||||||
Alexander v. Sandoval, 532 U.S. 275 (2001), was a United States Supreme Court decision which held that a regulation enacted under Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 did not include a private right of action to allow private lawsuits based on evidence of disparate impact, as policies with a disparate impact on minorities are presumed to be unintentional discrimination.
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[edit] The facts and procedural history
In 1990 Alabama added an amendment to the state constitution which made English the official language of Alabama. Thereafter James Alexander, Director of the Alabama Department of Public Safety, made the Alabama driver's license test English only. Martha Sandoval sued Alexander and other defendants in the United States District Court for the Middle District of Alabama under an administrative regulation. The Department of Justice had promulgated this regulation in order to implement Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which prohibits discrimination on the basis of "race, color, or national origin" in federally funded programs. Sandoval sought to enjoin the English-only policy, arguing that it had what is called a "disparate impact" on those born outside the United States, because the policy had the effect of subjecting those who did not speak English to discrimination. The district court agreed with Sandoval and enjoined the policy. The defendants then appealed to United States Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit. The Eleventh Circuit held that the regulation under which Sandoval sued allowed a private litigant to enforce its provisions, and affirmed the district court. The Supreme Court granted certiorari on "only the question [of] whether there [was] a private cause of action to enforce the regulation."[1]
[edit] Overview
The precedent the Court relied on the most for limiting § 601 to intentional discrimination was Cannon v. University of Chicago (1979). The Court split 5-4 over how to define the holding of Cannon. The dissent said the holding of Cannon included a footnote that described the disparate impact details of an age requirement that tended to "exclude women from consideration." Scalia's interpretation of the holding of the case excluded the disputed footnote and focused on the statement that Cannon was denied admission to medical school "because she is a woman."
Another issue was whether § 602 of Title VI needed to repeat the rights creating language (race, color, or national origin) in § 601 of the same title in order to allow a private cause of action to sue for policies that have a disparate impact on minorities.[2] The majority assumed for the sake of argument that the DOJ and DOT had a right to issue regulations banning policies that have a disparate impact under § 602, but that these rules were separate from a private cause of action to enforce them in § 601. In other words, the majority allowed the argument that the rule was valid but said that no private lawsuit could be made to enforce the rule. Stevens' dissent argued that the two sections were closely related parts of the same title, Title VI.
[edit] The law
[edit] Title VI
Section 601 of Title VI provides that no person shall, "on the ground of race, color, or national origin, be excluded from participation in, be denied the benefits of, or be subjected to discrimination under" a federally funded program.[3] Section 602 authorizes federal agencies "to effectuate the provisions of [§ 601] ... by issuing rules, regulations, or orders of general applicability."[4]
[edit] Implied private rights of action
An implied private right of action is a cause of action not expressly included by a statute but one which a court has interpreted the statute to implicitly create. Over the past three decades, the Supreme Court has become increasingly restrictive in implying private rights of action.[5]
In Cort v. Ash (1975), the Court laid down four factors to be considered in determining whether a statute implicitly included a private right of action: (1) whether the plaintiff is part of an especial class of people that the statute was intended to protect; (2) whether the legislative history suggests that Congress intended to create a cause of action; (3) whether granting an implied cause of action would support the underlying remedial scheme set down in the statute, and (4) whether the issue would be one that is traditionally left to state law.[6]
The Supreme Court used the four-part Cort v. Ash test for several years, and in applying the test, "[f]or the most part, the Court refused to create causes of action."[7] In Touche Ross & Co. v. Remington (1979), the Court adopted what legal scholars have called a new approach to the issue.[8] There, the Court said that the first three factors mentioned in Cort v. Ash were simply meant to be "relied upon in determining legislative intent."[9] "The ultimate question," the Court concluded, "is one of legislative intent, not one of whether this Court thinks that it can improve upon the statutory scheme that Congress enacted into law."[10] Justice Scalia and Justice O'Connor have stated that they believe Touche Ross effectively overruled the older Cort v. Ash test.[11]
[edit] Question presented
Was there an implied right of action to enforce the regulation under which Sandoval sued?
[edit] The majority opinion
The majority opinion, written by Justice Scalia, began by reviewing the Court's existing case law on Title VI. First, the majority held that Cannon v. University of Chicago, (1979), was controlling. Cannon, decided shortly before Touche Ross, held that Title IX met all four parts of the Cort v. Ash test and thus contained an implied private right of action. Title IX is identical to Title VI but applies to gender-based discrimination. The Sandoval majority stated that "[t]he reasoning of [Cannon] embraced the existence of a private right to enforce Title VI as well [as Title IX]."[12]
The Court said that § 601 prohibits only intentional discrimination according to Cannon. It referred to a footnote in Cannon that the dissent said indicated the disparate impact details of the case. According to the Court, "The language in Cannon to which respondents refer does not in fact support their position." The footnote[13] said that the effect of criteria including an age requirement is "to exclude women from consideration." The majority asserted, "this Court is bound by holdings, not language." Therefore, from the majority's point of view, the holding of Cannon did not include the footnote. As a consequence, it said only that Cannon's "application for admission to medical school was denied by the respondents because she is a woman," which applied only to intentional discrimination.
The majority assumed for the sake of argument that the Department of Justice (DOJ) and Department of Transportation (DOT) had a right to issue regulations banning policies that have a disparate impact under § 602. In dicta, however, it expressed doubt as to whether the regulation was consistent with controlling case law.[14]
The majority opinion said, in reference to Cannon, that "[i]t is thus beyond dispute that private individuals may sue to enforce § 601. Second, it is similarly beyond dispute–and no party disagrees–that § 601 prohibits only intentional discrimination." The Court then mentioned that Lau v. Nichols was inconsistent with the view that § 601 applies only to intentional discrimination, but said that the Court no longer allowed such interpretations, and that Cort v. Ash (1975) was the correct precedent to follow.
The Lau decision involved Chinese-Americans in San Francisco who, like Sandoval, complained that English only policies discriminated based on ethnic origin. For the Lau case, the Court held that § 601 does allow a private cause of action due to disparate impact. Cort applied to whether a cause of action could be implied by a criminal statute.
The majority said that since § 602 specified a funding cutoff, "the express provision of one method of enforcing a substantive rule suggests that Congress intended to preclude others."
[edit] Dissent
Justice Stevens pointed out what the majority had admitted, namely, that there was some confusion over the degree to which Bakke and Guardians applied to discrimination based on disparate impact.
Justice Stevens explained the Cannon decision as follows:
| “ | In providing a shorthand description of her claim in the text of the opinion, we ambiguously stated that she had alleged that she was denied admission “because she is a woman,” but we appended a lengthy footnote setting forth the details of her disparate impact claim. Other than the shorthand description of her claim, there is not a word in the text of the opinion even suggesting that she had made the improbable allegation that the University of Chicago and Northwestern University had intentionally discriminated against women. In the context of the entire opinion (including both its analysis and its uncontested description of the facts of the case), that single ambiguous phrase provides no basis for limiting the case’s holding to incidents of intentional discrimination. If anything, the fact that the phrase "because she is a woman" encompasses both intentional and disparate impact claims should have made it clear that the reasoning in the opinion was equally applicable to both types of claims. In any event, the holding of the case certainly applied to the disparate impact claim that was described in detail in footnote 1 of the opinion, id., at 680. | ” |
Justice Stevens's response to the majority's account of the relation between § 601 and § 602 is as follows:
| “ | Beyond its flawed structural analysis of Title VI and an evident antipathy toward implied rights of action, the majority offers little affirmative support for its conclusion that Congress did not intend to create a private remedy for violations of the Title VI regulations. The Court offers essentially two reasons for its position. First, it attaches significance to the fact that the “rights-creating” language in § 601 that defines the classes protected by the statute is not repeated in § 602. Ante, at 13—14. But, of course, there was no reason to put that language in § 602 because it is perfectly obvious that the regulations authorized by § 602 must be designed to protect precisely the same people protected by § 601. Moreover, it is self-evident that, linguistic niceties notwithstanding, any statutory provision whose stated purpose is to “effectuate” the eradication of racial and ethnic discrimination has as its “focus” those individuals who, absent such legislation, would be subject to discrimination.
Second, the Court repeats the argument advanced and rejected in Cannon that the express provision of a fund cut-off remedy “suggests that Congress intended to preclude others.” Ante, at 14 |
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[edit] References
- ^ Alexander v. Sandoval, 532 U.S. 275, 279 (2001) (majority opinion per Scalia, J.).
- ^ As the majority opinion said, "the "rights-creating" language so critical to the Court's analysis in Cannon of § 601, see 441 U.S., at 690 n. 13, is completely absent from § 602
- ^ 42 U.S.C. § 2000d.
- ^ 42 U.S.C. § 2000d-1.
- ^ Erwin Chemerinsky, Federal Jurisdiction § 6.3 at 382 (4th ed. 2003).
- ^ 422 U.S. 66, 78 (1975).
- ^ Chemerinsky, supra, § 6.3 at 384.
- ^ See Chemerinsky, supra, § 6.3 at 385; see also Susan Stabile, "The Role of Congressional Intent in Determining the Existence of Implied Private Rights of Action," 71 Notre Dame L. Rev. 861 (1996).
- ^ 442 U.S. 560, 576 (1979)
- ^ 442 U.S. at 578.
- ^ See their concurring opinions in Thompson v. Thompson, 484 U.S. 174 (1988).
- ^ 532 U.S. at 280.
- ^ The disputed footnote from Cannon reads in pertinent part:
441 U.S. at 680 n.2.“ According to her complaints, petitioner was qualified to attend both of the respondent medical schools based on both objective (i.e., grade-point average and test scores) and subjective criteria. In fact, both schools admitted some persons to the classes to which she applied despite the fact that those persons had less impressive objective qualifications than she did. Both medical schools receive federal aid, and both have policies against admitting applicants who are more than 30 years old (petitioner was 39 years old at the time she applied), at least if they do not have advanced degrees. ... Because the incidence of interrupted higher education is higher among women than among men, it is further claimed, the age and advanced-degree criteria operate to exclude women from consideration even though the criteria are not valid predictors of success in medical schools or in medical practice.
” - ^ See 532 U.S. at 282 (noting that statements in past opinions which supported the validity of the regulation were "in considerable tension" with precedents, such as Regents of the University of California v. Bakke and Guardians Association v. Civil Service Commission, which held that § 601 prohibited only intentional discrimination). As with Cannon, the majority said that only the holding of the Guardians case should be considered, and that the fact that five justices for the Guardians decision agreed with the disparate impact argument should not be considered.
