Wygant v Board of Education

https://caselaw.findlaw.com/us-supreme-court/476/267.html

Summary of case: Wygant v. Jackson Bd. of Educ., 476 U.S. 267 (1986)

In 1985, there was a collective bargaining agreement between the Jackson Board of Education in Michigan and the teacher’s union that stated that in the event of layoffs, the percentage of minority teachers laid off could not surpass the percentage of minority teachers employed. This agreement aimed to correct employment discrimination and retain minority teachers to serve as role models for minority students. Wendy Wygant was a nonminority teacher who was laid off; she sued and took the case to the District Court. The District Court upheld the statute based on race as it attempted to fix “societal discrimination”. The 6th Court of Appeals upheld that decision as well, without adding much new argument. Wygant advanced the case to the Supreme Court who produced a new verdict. The Supreme Court, under Chief Justice Rehnquist, ruled that the government “had to justify racial classifications with compelling state interest and demonstrate that its chosen means were narrowly tailored to its purpose” and that the collective bargaining agreement didn’t fulfill those requirements. In other words, they classified the laid offs with respect to race as unconstitutional as they violated the Equal Protection Clause of the 14th Amendment.

Here the government failed to extend the same protections to minorities as to non minorities. The phase “justify...with compelling state interest” could be interpreted in several ways. The compelling state interest is not defined so the state can determine its meaning. It doesn’t coincide with the interest of the state to laid off non minorities in favor of keeping minority teachers. As George Lipsitz says the state has an interest in "protecting the group interests of whites” (Lipsitz 383). If the state is invested in promoting whiteness while marginalizing minorities, this collective bargaining agreement is counterproductive in two ways: it protects minorities in white collar jobs and it inspires a new generation of educated minority students who have a higher chance of achieving economic success. The state doesn’t prioritize the education of minorities as another means to marginalize them. That is not the entire picture though as even minorities with equal education levels to non minorities are still denied jobs more often. On a larger scale, the government was promoting an agenda of personal responsibility and blaming the difficulties minorities faced on poor character rather than structural racism. Allowing a law to stand that cited a “societal discrimination” as a cause for affirmative action contrasted the government’s narrative and admitted that it was not the fault of minorities. The government had motive to find a reason to remove affirmative action.

The second part of the verdict, “...demonstrate that its chosen means were narrowly tailored to its purpose”, took advantage of the wording of the original agreement. The collective bargaining agreement stated the laid offs policies were set in place with the intent of righting a “societal discrimination”. Minorities have faced discriminations from so many aspects of societies, listing them all would be impossible and impractical. However, because the term is broad, the Supreme Court can diesecte it and argue the means were not narrow enough to address the problem. This leads to one of the differences between the District Court’s reasoning and the Supreme Court’s ruling. The state courts thought the collective bargaining agreement didn’t have to be justified by prior discrimination but the Supreme court stated the statue did have to justified by prior discrimination. Due to the reasoning, the Supreme Court could said the laid off policies didn’t fit the purpose of fixing prior discrimination as no one definitely could prove prior discrimination.

— Diana Rendler