Also known as: color blind · colorblind · colour-blind · race-neutral
Written by attorneys — see sources below.
A constitutional principle requiring that government classifications and actions remain neutral with respect to race. The principle bars official recognition of racial categories in the distribution of benefits or burdens unless the classification survives strict scrutiny. It rests on the view that the Constitution neither knows nor tolerates classes among citizens when civil rights are at stake.
Cody Callahan, a criminal defendant, noticed that the prosecutor used peremptory challenges to remove every Black venire member. Callahan made a prima facie showing of racial motivation. The prosecutor then had to supply a race-neutral reason for each strike, and the trial court evaluated whether purposeful discrimination had occurred.
Cassandra Cooper and other voters challenged a congressional district drawn with highly irregular boundaries that grouped residents almost exclusively by race. They argued the map violated their right to a color-blind electoral process. The court examined whether race had been the predominant factor in the districting decision.
Upon the 1990 census, North Carolina became entitled to a twelfth seat in the House of Representatives. The General Assembly passed an initial reapportionment plan that included only one majority-black district. The Attorney General interposed an objection under section 5 of the Voting Rights Act. The objection stated that the plan could have included a second majority-minority district in the south-central to southeastern area with boundary lines no more irregular than those elsewhere in the proposal. Subsequently, the General Assembly enacted a revised plan creating District 12 as the second majority-black district along the Interstate 85 corridor in the north-central region. The district extends roughly 160 miles, often no wider than the highway itself, snaking through diverse areas and incorporating sufficient black population enclaves to achieve a majority. It splits multiple counties into three districts each, divides towns, and maintains contiguity at one location only by intersecting other districts at a single point. Appellants are five residents of Durham County, North Carolina, all registered to vote in that county. Under the plan, two plaintiffs vote in District 12 and three in District 2. They alleged that the General Assembly deliberately created the districts along racial lines, arbitrarily concentrating black voters without regard to compactness, contiguity, or political subdivisions. The three-judge District Court granted the federal appellees' motion to dismiss on jurisdictional grounds related to the Voting Rights Act and dismissed the claims against the state appellees by a 2-1 vote. The majority held that the complaint failed to state an equal protection claim because the plan did not dilute white voting strength and was adopted to comply with the Voting Rights Act. The dissenting judge concluded that the irregular shape supported an inference of unlawful intent sufficient to defeat the motion to dismiss. The Supreme Court noted probable jurisdiction.
View caseCharlotte Chung's children were denied transfer to a preferred public school because the district used race as a tiebreaker to achieve demographic balance. Chung sued, claiming the assignment plan treated students differently solely on the basis of race. The court required the district to justify the explicit racial classification under strict scrutiny.
In the late 1990s the Seattle School District No. 1 adopted a student assignment plan for its ten regular public high schools. Incoming ninth graders ranked preferences among schools. The district applied a series of tiebreakers when schools were oversubscribed. The second tiebreaker classified students as white or nonwhite. It selected students whose race would bring an integration-positive school within ten percentage points of the district-wide balance of 41 percent white and 59 percent nonwhite. The plan affected assignments at five oversubscribed schools in the 2000-2001 school year. Petitioner Parents Involved in Community Schools filed suit in the Western District of Washington in July 2000 alleging violations of the Equal Protection Clause. Jefferson County Public Schools had been under a 1975 federal desegregation decree. The decree was dissolved in 2000 after a finding of unitary status. The district adopted a voluntary assignment plan in 2001. The plan required all nonmagnet schools to maintain black enrollment between 15 and 50 percent. The plan grouped elementary schools into clusters. It assigned kindergartners and new students within clusters according to space and racial guidelines. It denied transfer requests that would push a school outside the guidelines. Approximately 34 percent of the district's 97,000 students were black. When Crystal Meredith moved into the district in August 2002 she sought to enroll her son Joshua in kindergarten at Bloom Elementary one mile from their home. The district denied the intercluster transfer from Young Elementary because it would adversely affect desegregation compliance at Young which was then 46.8 percent black. Meredith filed suit in the Western District of Kentucky alleging an Equal Protection violation. The Seattle District Court granted summary judgment to the district in 2001. The Ninth Circuit en banc affirmed the federal constitutional ruling in 2005. The District Court found that Jefferson County had asserted a compelling interest in maintaining racially diverse schools, and that the assignment plan was in all relevant respects narrowly tailored to serve that compelling interest. The Sixth Circuit affirmed in a per curiam opinion relying upon the reasoning of the District Court. The Supreme Court granted certiorari in both cases in 2006.
View caseChristian Coleman, a white defendant, objected when the prosecutor struck Black prospective jurors. Coleman asserted that the race-based strikes violated the equal protection rights of the excluded jurors themselves. The court recognized his standing to raise the claim even though he did not share the jurors' race.
Larry Joe Powers, a white man, was indicted in Franklin County, Ohio, on two counts of aggravated murder and one count of attempted aggravated murder, each with a firearm specification. Powers pleaded not guilty and invoked his right to a jury trial. In the jury selection process, Powers objected when the prosecutor exercised his first peremptory challenge to remove a black venireperson and requested that the trial court compel the prosecutor to explain the reasons on the record. The trial court denied the request and excused the juror. The State proceeded to use nine more peremptory challenges, six of which removed black venirepersons from the jury. Each time the prosecution challenged a black prospective juror, Powers renewed his objections, citing Batson v. Kentucky, but the trial court overruled them. The record does not indicate that race was implicated in the crime or the trial. The empaneled jury convicted Powers on counts of murder, aggravated murder, and attempted aggravated murder, each with the firearm specifications, and the trial court sentenced him to a term of imprisonment of 53 years to life. Powers appealed his conviction to the Ohio Court of Appeals, contending that the prosecutor's discriminatory use of peremptories violated the Sixth Amendment's guarantee of a fair cross section in his petit jury, the Fourteenth Amendment's Equal Protection Clause, and Article I, §§ 10 and 16, of the Ohio Constitution. The Court of Appeals affirmed the conviction, and the Supreme Court of Ohio dismissed Powers' appeal on the ground that it presented no substantial constitutional question. Petitioner sought review before the Supreme Court, renewing his Sixth Amendment and Fourteenth Amendment claims. While the petition for certiorari was pending, the Court decided Holland v. Illinois. After that decision, the Supreme Court granted certiorari limited to the question whether, based on the Equal Protection Clause, a white defendant may object to the prosecution's peremptory challenges of black venirepersons.
View caseChristopher Collins, a Black passenger, refused to move to a designated rail car under a state law requiring racial separation. He argued that the statute imposed a racial classification forbidden by the Constitution. The court upheld the law, treating it as a reasonable regulation of civil rights rather than a violation of equality.
In 1890 the General Assembly of Louisiana passed Act No. 111. The statute required railway companies carrying passengers in the state to provide equal but separate accommodations for the white and colored races. This could be accomplished by providing two or more passenger coaches for each train or by dividing the coaches with a partition. The act did not apply to street railroads. Train officers were required to assign each passenger to the coach or compartment for the race to which the passenger belonged. A passenger who insisted on entering the wrong coach faced a fine of twenty-five dollars or imprisonment up to twenty days. The same penalties applied to officers who made incorrect assignments. Nurses attending children of the other race were exempted. Homer Plessy, seven eighths Caucasian and one eighth African with the mixture not discernible, boarded an East Louisiana Railway train traveling between two stations within Louisiana. He took a seat in the coach for white passengers. The conductor ordered him to move to the colored coach. Upon refusal, Plessy was ejected with police assistance and imprisoned in the parish jail. An information in the criminal District Court charged Plessy with violating the statute. Plessy petitioned for a writ of prohibition, claiming the statute violated the Thirteenth and Fourteenth Amendments. The East Louisiana Railway was a local line with termini within the state.
View caseCharles Cunningham and other firefighters passed a promotional exam, but the city discarded the results because too few minority candidates had scored high enough. Cunningham sued, claiming the decision to disregard the test constituted an impermissible racial classification. The court required the city to show a strong basis in evidence of its own past discrimination before discarding race-neutral test outcomes.
In 2003, the City of New Haven hired Industrial/Organizational Solutions, Inc. to develop and administer promotional examinations for lieutenant and captain positions in its fire department pursuant to a collective-bargaining agreement that required a written component weighted at 60 percent and an oral component weighted at 40 percent. IOS performed job analyses that deliberately oversampled minority firefighters to avoid unintentional bias favoring white candidates. The examinations were administered in November and December 2003. Seventy-seven candidates completed the lieutenant examination. Forty-one candidates completed the captain examination. The results showed pass rates of 58.1 percent for white candidates, 31.6 percent for Hispanic candidates, and 31.6 percent for black candidates on the lieutenant exam. Pass rates on the captain exam were 64.3 percent for white candidates, 37.5 percent for Hispanic candidates, and 0 percent for black candidates. Under the rule of three, the top ten candidates eligible for lieutenant promotion were all white. The top nine candidates eligible for captain promotion were seven whites and two Hispanics. After the results were released, the City held five public hearings before its Civil Service Board between January and March 2004. At those hearings, IOS vice president Chad Legel described the test-development process. Testing consultant Christopher Hornick criticized the 60/40 weighting and recommended assessment centers. Retired fire captain Vincent Lewis reviewed the content. Boston College professor Janet Helms discussed possible cultural bias in the job-analysis questionnaires. City officials including corporation counsel Thomas Ude and human-resources director Tina Burgett urged non-certification on the ground that the statistical disparity would expose the City to liability. Several candidates who had passed the exams urged certification. The Board deadlocked 2-2 and declined to certify the results. Seventeen white firefighters and one Hispanic firefighter who had passed the examinations sued the City, Mayor John DeStefano, and other officials in the United States District Court for the District of Connecticut, alleging violations of Title VII and the Equal Protection Clause. The District Court granted summary judgment for the defendants. The Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit affirmed in a per curiam opinion. The Supreme Court granted certiorari.
View caseNo. The principle subjects every explicit racial classification to strict scrutiny, but it does not impose an absolute bar. A classification survives only if it is narrowly tailored to a compelling governmental interest, such as remedying the government's own proven past discrimination.
The principle treats a private litigant's use of peremptory strikes in a civil jury trial as state action because jury selection is a traditional governmental function performed under court supervision. Race-based strikes therefore violate equal protection and must be disallowed once a prima facie case is shown.
The government must produce a strong basis in evidence of its own identified past discrimination in the relevant industry or program. Generalized assertions of societal discrimination or statistical underrepresentation alone are insufficient to justify a racial classification.
…to this case necessarily be incompatible with our equal protection cases. Cf. Rogers v. Lodge , 458 U. S. 613, 618 (1982) (race-neutral law that “‘bears more heavily on one race than another’” may violate equal protection) (citation omitted); Castaneda v. Partida , 430 U. S. 482, 492-495 (1977) (grand jury selection). We…