Washington v. Davis

Facts

Two black police officers sued District of Columbia and federal officials on April 10, 1970. They said the Metropolitan Police Department's promotion policies were racially discriminatory. Harley and Sellers, whose applications to become officers had been rejected, intervened. They said the Department's recruiting practices discriminated against black applicants, including a written personnel test that excluded a disproportionately high number of them. That test, Test 21, was used generally throughout the federal service. The Civil Service Commission, not the Police Department, developed it to test verbal ability, vocabulary, reading and comprehension. To enter the Department's 17-week training program, a recruit also had to meet physical and character standards, be a high school graduate or its equivalent, and score at least 40 out of 80 on Test 21. The District Court noted that no one claimed intentional discrimination. The claim was that Test 21 bore no relationship to job performance and screened out black candidates at a higher rate. Since August 1969, 44% of new recruits had been black. That was also the share of blacks on the whole force. It was roughly equal to the share of 20- to 29-year-old blacks in the 50-mile radius where the Department had concentrated its recruiting. The Department had systematically and affirmatively sought black officers.

Issues

1. Does a racially neutral qualifying test violate the equal protection component of the Fifth Amendment's Due Process Clause solely because a higher proportion of black applicants than white applicants fail it, with no proof of discriminatory purpose?
2. Was the District Court correct to uphold Test 21 on the statutory claims, by finding it job related because it predicted success in the police training program?

Holding

Test 21 was not unconstitutional merely because more black than white applicants failed it. The Court of Appeals erred in applying Title VII standards to the constitutional claim. The District Court also correctly rejected the statutory claims, since validation by a relationship to performance in the training program could suffice, and the record supported its finding that Test 21 was directly related to that program. The Court reversed.