#17 Griggs v. Duke Power Company

Facts of the Case

Our story starts in Eden, North Carolina, at the Dan River Stream Station power plant owned by, you guessed it, the Duke Power Company.

Around the time of the case, the power plant was separated into 5 divisions: Labor, Coal Handling, Operation, Maintenance, and Laboratory and Test. According to company policy, white employees were eligible to work in all 5 divisions, while black employees were only allowed to work in the Labor division, where the highest paid position earned less than the lowest paid positions in the other divisions.

Eventually this overtly discriminatory policy changed. Gone was the restriction of black employees solely to the Labor division. Instead, the company decided that joining any division other than the Labor division, either through direct hiring or transfer, would require a high school diploma.

This means if you worked in the Labor division and wanted to transfer to any other division, you were required to have your high school diploma.

Any employee already working in one of the non-Labor divisions who did not have a high school diploma was grandfathered in, so they kept their jobs and could be promoted within their unit. The high school diploma was only required if they wanted to transfer to a different division.

This policy continued for a decade until passage of the Civil Rights Act. Now, the Civil Rights Act is a long law, but what we care about for this episode is part of Title VII of the Act, which includes the following provisions:

It shall be an unlawful employment practice for an employer…To limit, segregate, or classify his employees in any way which would deprive or tend to deprive any individual of employment opportunities or otherwise adversely affect his status as an employee, because of such individual’s race, color, religion, sex, or national origin…Notwithstanding any other provision of this title, it shall not be an unlawful employment practice for an employer . . . to give and to act upon the results of any professionally developed ability test provided that such test, its administration or action upon the results is not designed, intended or used to discriminate because of race, color, religion, sex or national origin.

To summarize: employers cannot discriminate against employees because of race, color, religion, sex, or national origin, but they can use tests developed by professionals in making employment decisions provided they don’t violate the previously mentioned discrimination thing.

Following passage of the law, the Duke Power Company amended their policies. Now, a basic test was instituted in order to be hired into the Labor division, while passage of 2 standardized tests, specifically the Wonderlic and Bennet tests, was required in lieu of a high school diploma for the other divisions. So to join Labor, you didn’t need a high school diploma and had to pass a simple test, while to join the other divisions you would need a high school diploma or you had to pass both the Wonderlic and Bennet tests.

Again, for employees without a high school diploma already working in a non-Labor division, they were allowed to keep their jobs and remain eligible for promotion within their unit without having to pass the tests. As for transferring, a high school diploma was still required until white employees without high school diplomas protested. So, the policy was changed requiring either a high school diploma or passing the 2 tests.

In response to these changes, 13 of the black employees of the company filed a complaint with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission or EEOC, alleging discriminatory labor practices. The EEOC sent 2 investigators to speak with individuals at the site of the power plant and company leaders. According to their report, they found few satisfactory answers to their questions. While the company did eliminate segregated locker rooms immediately after the inspectors’ visit, it did not prevent the EEOC from endorsing the complaints of the black power plant workers.

Now, it’s important to understand that the Civil Rights Act was a controversial and difficult bill to pass, and that for the sake of getting it through Congress, a lot of things were left out of it that civil rights advocates would have liked to see. One of the things that was dropped was giving the EEOC enforcement capabilities. Instead, according to the act, the EEOC could only, “endeavor to eliminate any such alleged unlawful employment practice by informal methods of conference, conciliation, and persuasion.” Any real enforcement mechanisms were reserved for the Justice Department.

So following endorsement of the claims of the black employees, the EEOC could only meet with company officials and try to influence them to change their ways. This was delayed due to the EEOC’s workload, and when a meeting was finally had, it was not productive.

As a result, a lawyer associated with the Legal Defense Fund filed a discrimination suit as a class action on behalf of the black workers at the power plant.

The District Court rejected the findings of the EEOC, arguing that since 2 black employees had obtained roles previously held by white employees, that Duke Power was no longer discriminating, and that while past discrimination may have impacts in the future, the company’s current policies were not responsible for the effects of prior policies. Additionally, using tests to determine eligibility for roles was ruled to be reasonable.

The Legal Defense Fund appealed the District Court ruling to the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals, which ruled 2-1 in favor of the Duke Power Company, though not without significant discussion over more than 5 months.

Following this second defeat, and after some discussion of their own about whether it was worth appealing to the Supreme Court, the Legal Defense Fund did ultimately opt to appeal.

Ruling of the Relitigated Justices

Click here to show how the Relitigated justices ruled on the case…

Votes By Party

Griggs

3

Argued by Jarret

v.

Duke Power Company

0

Argued by Nikki

Votes By Justice

Chief Justice Sarah

Griggs

Justice Mike

Griggs

Justice Serena

Griggs

References