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Volume 1 Number 4 JEWISH CIVIL RIGHTS GROUPS SUPPORT AFFIRMATIVE ACTION IN CASE BEFORE THE SUPREME COURT
A number of Jewish and civil rights organizations including the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund, Inc., the American Jewish Congress, the American Jewish Committee, the NAACP, the Mexican American Legal Defense Fund, the Puerto Rican Legal Defense Fund, and the Asian American Legal Defense Fund have filed a friend of the court brief in Local 28, Sheet Metal Workers, 753 F.2d 1172 Und. Cir.), cert. granted, 54 U.S.L.W. 3191 (U.S. Oct. 7, 1985)(No. 841656). Significant is the fact that while these organizations have differing views on the use of race or sex conscious numerical measures, they uniformly support the race conscious remedy imposed by the court in this case a goal of 29 percent nonwhite union members by 1987.
Background
The case involves a long running effort to get a sheet metal workers' local to comply with court orders requiring an end to practices which excluded and discriminated against black workers. The local, its apprenticeship committee, and the contractors' association, appealed from several district court orders which found the local in contempt, imposed both compensatory and coercive fines, and adopted an amended affirmative action plan which included a nonwhite union membership goal of 29 percent to be achieved by July 31, 1987. The court found the union had engaged in a pattern and practice of racial discrimination, and a campaign of evasion and resistance to the court orders (See the December 1985 MONITOR).
The Brief
The amicus brief states that the organizations object "to the attempt of the Solicitor General to label as 'quotas' any and all affirmative numerical remedies, regardless of whether those remedies may be essential to eliminate and correct discrimination ... Further, the amici argue that "for almost twenty years federal district judges responsible for framing decrees to enforce Title VII have concluded that the use of numerical remedies was necessary to redress, prevent or deter discrimination under the circumstances of the specific cases before them ... To hold, as petitioners urge, that Title VII absolutely forbids such remedies, would raise serious questions about the enforceability of Title VII itself."
The Department of Justice sued the union in 1971 and the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission replaced the DOJ as counsel for the U.S. shortly thereafter. EEOC consistently supported the goal requirement until December 1985 when the agency changed its position and signed onto the Department of Justice's brief opposing the numerical remedy. This is another example of this Administration attempting to reverse the civil rights policies of previous administrations, Republican and Democratic. It has been the consistent policy of the EEOC to use affirmative action goals, and the EEOC presently maintains Guidelines which encourage employers to use affirmative action goals.
The case was argued along with another affirmative action case, Vanguards V. City of Cleveland, 753 F.2d 479 (6th Cir.), cert. granted, 511 U.S.L.W. 3191 (U.S. Oct. 7, 1985) (No. 841999) on February 25, 1986. An opinion is expected by the summer.
  
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