Dothard v. Rawlinson

433 U.S. 321

97 S.Ct. 2720

53 L.Ed.2d 786

E. C. DOTHARD et al., Appellants

v Dianne RAWLINSON et al.

No. 76-422.

Argued April 19, 1977.

Decided June 27, 1977.

Syllabus

After her application for employment as a 'correctional counselor' (prison guard) in Alabama was rejected because she failed to meet the minimum 120-pound weight requirement of an Alabama statute, which also establishes a height minimum of 5 feet 2 inches, appellee Rawlinson (hereafter appellee) filed a charge with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission and ultimately brought a class action against appellant corrections officials challenging the statutory height and weight requirements and a regulation establishing gender criteria for assigning correctional counselors to 'contact' positions (positions requiring close physical proximity to inmates) as violative of Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, inter alia. A three-judge District Court decided in appellee's favor. On the basis of national statistics as to the comparative height and weight of men and women indicating that Alabama's statutory standards would exclude over 40% of the female population but less than 1% of the male population, the court found that with respect to such standards appellee had made out a prima facie case of unlawful sex discrimination, which appellants had failed to rebut. The court also found the challenged regulation impermissible under Title VII as being based on stereotyped characterizations of the sexes, and, rejecting appellants' bona-fide-occupational-qualification defense under § 703(e) of Title VII, ruled that being male was not such a qualification for the job of correctional counselor in a 'contact' position in an Alabama male maximum-security penitentiary. Held:

1. The District Court did not err in holding that Title VII prohibited application of the statutory height and weight requirements to appellee and the class she represents. Pp. 328-332.

(a) To establish a prima facie case of employment discrimination, a plaintiff need only show that the facially neutral standards in question, such as Alabama's height and weight standards, select applicants for hire in a significantly discriminatory pattern, and here the showing of the disproportionate impact of the height and weight standards on women based on national statistics, rather than on comparative statis- tics of actual applicants, sufficed to make out a prima facie case. Pp. 328-331.

(b) Appellants failed to rebut the prima facie case of discrimination on the basis that the height and weight requirements are job related in that they have a relationship to the strength essential to efficient job performance as a correctional counselor, where appellants produced no evidence correlating such requirements with the requisite amount of strength thought essential to good job performance, and in fact failed to offer evidence of any kind in specific justification of the statutory standards. P. 331.

2. In the particular circumstances of this case, the District Court erred in rejecting appellants' contention that the regulation in question falls within the narrow ambit of the bona-fide-occupational-qualification exception of § 703(e), it appearing from the evidence that Alabama maintains a prison system where violence is the order of the day, inmate access to guards is facilitated by dormitory living arrangements, every correctional institution is understaffed, and a substantial portion of the inmate population is composed of sex offenders mixed at random with other prisoners, and that therefore the use of women guards in 'contact' positions in the maximum-security male penitentiaries would pose a substantial security problem, directly linked to the sex of the prison guard. Pp. 332-337.

418 F.Supp. 1169, affirmed in part, reversed in part, and remanded.

G. Daniel Evans, Montgomery, Ala., for the appellants, pro hac vice, by special leave of Court.

Pamela S. Horowitz, Montgomery, Ala., for the appellees, pro hac vice, by special leave of Court.

Mr. Justice STEWART delivered the opinion of the Court.

Appellee Dianne Rawlinson sought employment with the Alabama Board of Corrections as a prison guardCalled in Alabama a 'correctional counselor.' After her application was rejected, she brought this class suit under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, 78 Stat. 253, as amended, 42 U.S.C. § 2000e et seq. (1970 ed. and Supp. V), and under 42 U.S.C. § 1983, alleging that she had been denied employment because of her sex in violation of federal law. A three-judge Federal District Court for the Middle District of Alabama decided in her favor. Mieth v. Dothard, 418 F.Supp. 1169. We noted probable jurisdiction of this appeal from the District Court's judgment. 429 U.S. 976, 97 S.Ct. 483, 50 L.Ed.2d 583.¹

I

At the time she applied for a position as correctional counselor trainee, Rawlinson was a 22-year-old college graduate whose major course of study had been correctional psychology. She was refused employment because she failed to meet the minimum 120-pound weight requirement estab- lished by an Alabama statute. The statute also establishes a height minimum of 5 feet 2 inches.²

After her application was rejected because of her weight, Rawlinson filed a charge with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, and ultimately received a right-to-sue letter.³ She then filed a complaint in the District Court on behalf of herself and other similarly situated women, challenging the statutory height and weight minima as violative of Title VII and the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment.⁴ A three-judge court was convened.⁵ While the suit was pending, the Alabama Board of Corre- ctions adopted Administrative Regulation 204, establishing gender criteria for assigning correctional counselors to maximum-security institutions for 'contact positions,' that is, positions requiring continual close physical proximity to inmates of the institution.⁶ Rawlinson amended her class-action complaint by adding a challenge to regulation 204 as also violative of Title VII and the Fourteenth Amendment.

Like most correctional facilities in the United States,⁷ Alabama's prisons are segregated on the basis of sex. Currently the Alabama Board of Corrections operates four major all-male penitentiaries Holman Prison, Kilby Corrections Facility, G. K. Fountain Correction Center, and Draper Correctional Center. The Board also operates the Julia Tutwiler Prison for Women, the Frank Lee Youth Center, the Number Four Honor Camp, the State Cattle Ranch, and nine Work Release Centers, one of which is for women. The Julia Tutwiler Prison for Women and the four male penitentiaries are maximum-security institutions. Their inmate living quarters are for the most part large dormitories, with communal showers and toilets that are open to the dormitories and hallways. The Draper and Fountain penitentiaries carry on extensive farming operations, making necessary a large number of strip searches for contraband when prisoners re-enter the prison buildings.

A correctional counselor's primary duty within these institutions is to maintain security and control of the inmates by continually supervising and observing their activities.⁸ To be eligible for consideration as a correctional counselor, an applicant must possess a valid Alabama driver's license, have a high school education or its equivalent, be free from physical defects, be between the ages of 20 1/2 years and 45 years at the time of appointment, and fall between the minimum height and weight requirements of 5 feet 2 inches, and 120 pounds, and the maximum of 6 feet 10 inches, and 300 pounds. Appointment is by merit, with a grade assigned each applicant based on experience and education. No written examination is given.

At the time this litigation was in the District Court, the Board of Corrections employed a total of 435 people in various correctional counselor positions, 56 of whom were women. Of those 56 women, 21 were employed at the Julia Tutwiler Prison for Women, 13 were employed in noncontact positions at the four male maximum-security institutions, and the remaining 22 were employed at the other institutions operated by the Alabama Board of Corrections. Because most of Alabama's prisoners are held at the four maximum-security male penitentiaries, 336 of the 435 correctional counselor jobs were in those institutions, a majority of them concededly in the 'contact' classification. ⁹ Thus, even though meeting the statutory height and weight requirements, women applicants could under Regulation 204 com- pete equally with men for only about 25% of the correctional counselor jobs available in the Alabama prison system.

II

In enacting Title VII, Congress required 'the removal of artificial, arbitrary, and unnecessary barriers to employment when the barriers operate invidiously to discriminate on the basis of racial or other impermissible classification.' Griggs v. Duke Power Co., 401 U.S. 424, 431, 91 S.Ct. 849, 853, 28 L.Ed.2d 158. The District Court found that the minimum statutory height and weight requirements that applicants for employment as correctional counselors must meet constitute the sort of arbitrary barrier to equal employment opportunity that Title VII forbids.¹⁰ The appellants assert that the District Court erred both in finding that the height and weight standards discriminate against women, and in its refusal to find that, even if they do, these standards are justified as 'job related.'

The gist of the claim that the statutory height and weight requirements discriminate against women does not involve an assertion of purposeful discriminatory motive.¹¹ It is as- serted, rather, that these facially neutral qualification standards work in fact disproportionately to exclude women from eligibility for employment by the Alabama Board of Corrections. We dealt in Griggs v. Duke Power Co., supra and Albemarle Paper Co. v. Moody, 422 U.S. 405, 95 S.Ct....