United Steelworkers v. Weber
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| Steelworkers v. Weber | |||||||||||
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| Argued March 28, 1979 Decided June 27, 1979 |
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| Holding | |||||||||||
| Court membership | |||||||||||
| Chief Justice: Warren E. Burger Associate Justices: William J. Brennan, Potter Stewart, Byron White, Thurgood Marshall, Harry Blackmun, Lewis Franklin Powell, Jr., William Rehnquist, John Paul Stevens |
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| Majority by: Brennan Joined by: Stewart, White, Marshall, Blackmun Concurrence by: Blackmun Dissent by: Burger Dissent by: Rehnquist Joined by: Burger |
United Steelworkers of America v. Weber, 443 U.S. 193 (1979), was a case regarding affirmative action in which the United States Supreme Court held that the Civil Rights Act of 1964 did not bar employers from favoring women and minorities. The Court's decision reversed lower courts' rulings in favor of Brian Weber whose lawsuit beginning in 1974 challenged his employer's hiring practices.
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[edit] Background
Brian Weber, a 32 year old laboratory analyst at a chemical plant, was excluded from a job training program that, if completed, would have significantly raised his pay. In an effort to raise the number of black workers in their company, the Kaiser Aluminum & Chemical Corp., the company that Weber worked for, decided to accepts white and black into the traing program on a 1 to 1 basis. Upon being rejected from the program, Weber filed a lawsuit, citing Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 as the basis for it.
[edit] The Case
Lower and federal courts supported Weber's claim that the Civil Rights Act of 1964 banned all forms of racial discrimination in employment whether against blacks or whites. But a 5-2 Supreme Court majority disagreed, arguing that the lower courts' rulings were consistent with the text of the act but not the intent of Congress. Chief Justice Warren Burger and Justice William Rehnquist dissented. Chief Justice Warren Burger said, "Congress expressly prohibited the discrimination against Brian Weber the court approves now." (Lewis Powell and John Paul Stevens did not participate in the decision.)
[edit] References
- "What the Weber Ruling Does". Time. July 9, 1979.
- "United Steelworkers v. Weber." West's Encyclopedia of American Law. The Gale Group, Inc. 1998.
[edit] External links
- Text of the decision at findlaw.com. Accessed Jan. 29, 2007.
- Herndon, Randolph K. "The Presence of State Action in United Steelworkers v. Weber." Duke Law Journal. Vol. 1980, No. 6. (Dec., 1980), pp. 1172-1200. Accessed Jan. 29, 2007.
