Addenda
April 26, 2011
While we have rejected the argument that the Board's non-remedial application of the affirmative action policy is consistent with the language and intent of Title VII, we do not reject in principle the diversity goal articulated by the Board. Indeed, we recognize that the differences among us underlie the richness and strength of our Nation. Our disposition of this mattter, however, rests squarely on the foundation of Title VII. Although we applaud the goal of racial diversity, we cannot agree that Title VII permits an employer to advance that goal through non-remedial discriminatory measures. From the minority opinion: It is ``ironic indeed'' that the promotion of racial diversity in the classroom, which has formed so central a role in this country's stuggle to eliminate the causes and consequences of racial discrimination, is today held to be at odds with the very Act that was triggered by our ``Nation's concern over centuries of racial injustice.'' Nor does it seem plausible that the drafters of Title VII intended it to be interpreted so as to require a local school district to resort to a lottery to determine which of two qualified teachers to retain, rather than employ the School Board's own educational policy undertaken to insure students an opportunity to learn from a teacher who was a member of the very group whose treatment motivated Congress to enact Title VII in the first place. In my view, the Board's purpose of obtaining the educational benefit to be derived from a racially diverse faculty is entirely consistent with the purposed animating Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964.
