U S Supreme Court GRIGGS v DUKE POWER CO 401 U S 424 1971 401 U S 424 GRIGGS ET AL v DUKE POWER CO CERTIORARI TO THE UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS FOR THE FOURTH CIRCUIT No 124 Argued December 14 1970 Decided March 8 1971 Negro employees at respondent s generating plant brought this action pursuant to Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 challenging respondent s requirement of a high school diploma or passing of intelligence tests as a condition of employment in or transfer to jobs at the plant These requirements were not directed at or intended to measure ability to learn to perform a particular job or category of jobs While 703 a of the Act makes it an unlawful employment practice for an employer to limit segregate or classify employees to deprive them of employment opportunities or adversely to affect their status because of race color religion sex or national origin 703 h authorizes the use of any professionally developed ability test provided that it is not designed intended or used to discriminate The District Court found that respondent s former policy of racial discrimination had ended and that Title VII being prospective only did not reach the prior inequities The Court of Appeals reversed in part rejecting the holding that residual discrimination arising from prior practices was insulated from remedial action but agreed with the lower court that there was no showing of discriminatory purpose in the adoption of the diploma and test requirements It held that absent such discriminatory purpose use of the requirements was permitted and rejected the claim that because a disproportionate number of Negroes was rendered ineligible for promotion transfer or employment the requirements were unlawful unless shown to be job related Held 1 The Act requires the elimination of artificial arbitrary and unnecessary barriers to employment that operate invidiously to discriminate on the basis of race and if as here an employment practice that operates to exclude Negroes cannot be shown to be related to job performance it is prohibited notwithstanding the employer s lack of discriminatory intent Pp 429 433 2 The Act does not preclude the use of testing or measuring procedures but it does proscribe giving them controlling force unless 401 U S 424 425 they are demonstrably a reasonable measure of job performance Pp 433 436 420 F 2d 1225 reversed in part BURGER C J delivered the opinion of the Court in which all members joined except BRENNAN J who took no part in the consideration or decision of the case Jack Greenberg argued the cause for petitioners With him on the briefs were James M Nabrit III Norman C Amaker William L Robinson Conrad O Pearson Julius LeVonne Chambers and Albert J Rosenthal George W Ferguson Jr argued the cause for respondent With him on the brief were William I Ward Jr and George M Thorpe Lawrence M Cohen argued the cause for the Chamber of Commerce of the United States as amicus curiae urging affirmance With him on the brief were Francis V Lowden Jr Gerard C Smetana and Milton A Smith Briefs of amici curiae urging reversal were filed by Solicitor General Griswold Assistant Attorney General Leonard Deputy Solicitor General Wallace David L Rose Stanley Hebert and Russell Specter for the United States by Louis J Lefkowitz Attorney General pro se Samuel A Hirshowitz First Assistant Attorney General and George D Zuckerman and Dominick J Tuminaro Assistant Attorneys General for the Attorney General of the State of New York and by Bernard Kleiman Elliot Bredhoff Michael H Gottesman and George H Cohen for the United Steelworkers of America AFL CIO MR CHIEF JUSTICE BURGER delivered the opinion of the Court We granted the writ in this case to resolve the question whether an employer is prohibited by the Civil Rights Act of 1964 Title VII from requiring a high school education 401 U S 424 426 or passing of a standardized general intelligence test as a condition of employment in or transfer to jobs when a neither standard is shown to be significantly related to successful job performance b both requirements operate to disqualify Negroes at a substantially higher rate than white applicants and c the jobs in question formerly had been filled only by white employees as part of a longstanding practice of giving preference to whites 1 Congress provided in Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 for class actions for enforcement of provisions of the Act and this proceeding was brought by a group of incumbent Negro employees against Duke Power Company All the petitioners are employed at the Company s Dan River Steam Station a power generating facility located at Draper North Carolina At the time this action was instituted the Company had 95 employees at the Dan River Station 14 of whom were Negroes 13 of these are petitioners here The District Court found that prior to July 2 1965 the effective date of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 the 401 U S 424 427 Company openly discriminated on the basis of race in the hiring and assigning of employees at its Dan River plant The plant was organized into five operating departments 1 Labor 2 Coal Handling 3 Operations 4 Maintenance and 5 Laboratory and Test Negroes were employed only in the Labor Department where the highest paying jobs paid less than the lowest paying jobs in the other four operating departments in which only whites were employed 2 Promotions were normally made within each department on the basis of job seniority Transferees into a department usually began in the lowest position In 1955 the Company instituted a policy of requiring a high school education for initial assignment to any department except Labor and for transfer from the Coal Handling to any inside department Operations Maintenance or Laboratory When the Company abandoned its policy of restricting Negroes to the Labor Department in 1965 completion of high school also was made a prerequisite to transfer from Labor to any other department From the time the high school requirement was instituted to the time of trial however white employees hired before the time of the high school education requirement continued to perform satisfactorily and achieve promotions in the operating departments Findings on this score are not challenged The Company added a further requirement for new employees on July 2 1965 the date on which Title VII became effective To qualify for placement in any but the Labor Department it became necessary to register satisfactory scores on two
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