CHAPMAN, Circuit Judge:
This is an age discrimination action brought under 42 U.S.C. §§ 1983 and 1985 and the Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution. Plaintiff James Zombro, a member of the Baltimore City Police Department, contends that he was unlawfully transferred from one department to another because of his age. He seeks compensatory damages and reassignment to his former post with the Inner Harbor Tactical Division. The district court granted summary judgment in favor of defendants Police Commissioner and Police Department. We affirm, but for reasons different from those expressed by the district court.
I.
Plaintiff James Zombro was employed as an officer with the Baltimore City Police Department, and worked with the Inner Harbor Tactical Division. In early March 1986, the Inner Harbor Unit Supervisor, Lt. Johnson, informed Zombro that he was going to be transferred out of the Unit. Johnson contends that he based the transfer on Zombro’s purported poor attitude, particularly his “harsh demeanor” with Inner Harbor visitors and merchants. Zomb-ro asserts that Johnson “advised the Plaintiff that he had been in his current assignment to the Tactical Division, Inner Harbor, too long and that he should not assume he could not be transferred. Lt. Johnson further indicated,” according to Zombro’s Complaint, “that certain officers, including the Plaintiff, may be transferred because of their age.” Plaintiff Zombro also alleged that he did not request a transfer from Inner Harbor to a “job of lesser status.” Zombro was transferred to the Northeast Section on March 31, 1986, at the same pay as when he was with the Inner Harbor Tactical Division.
Zombro was forty-five years of age when this action was commenced. He claims he was subjected to unlawful age-based discrimination and that he is entitled to relief under 42 U.S.C. §§ 1983 and 1985 (1982). The § 1985 action is based upon an alleged conspiracy between the Police Commissioner Robinson and the “Baltimore City Police Department.” Zombro also claims that the Police Commissioner and the Department [1366]*1366violated his right to equal protection under the Fourteenth Amendment in effectuating his transfer.
In a memorandum opinion dated October 22, 1986, the district court granted defendants’ motion for summary judgment, stating that Zombro failed to assert a Fourteenth Amendment liberty or property interest as required to maintain an action under §§ 1983 and 1985. Particularly, the court stated that Zombro had no property interest in a specific post of duty or work location in the Department.
Zombro claims that age discrimination is a proper basis for an action under § 1983 and that he alleged sufficient facts to support such a cause of action. There is a factual dispute as to the reason for his transfer, and he asserts that he need not establish a liberty or property interest under the equal protection clause of the Fourteenth Amendment or under §§ 1983 or 1985.
II.
A.
Title 42 U.S.C. § 1983 provides in pertinent part:
Every person who, under color of any statute, ordinance, regulation, custom, or usage ... subjects ... any citizen of the United States ... to the deprivation of any rights, privileges, or immunities secured by the Constitution and laws, shall be liable to the party injured....
Section 1983 does not in itself create any substantive rights. Rather, it provides a statutory basis to receive a remedy for the deprivation of a right “secured by the Constitution and laws” of the United States by a person acting under color of state law. Chapman v. Houston Welfare Rights Organization, 441 U.S. 600, 99 S.Ct. 1905, 60 L.Ed.2d 508 (1979).
The Plaintiffs claims, of course, fall within the scope of the specific and comprehensive administrative remedies provided by the Age Discrimination in Employment Act (ADEA), 29 U.S.C. § 621, et seq. (1982). Plaintiff Zombro, however, declined to bring this action under the ADEA.1 Rather, he alleges that his employer’s action was a violation of the equal protection guarantee or clause of the. Fourteenth Amendment, and that this federal constitutional violation is a sufficient deprivation of rights to give rise to a § 1983 action.
The ADEA provides a comprehensive statutory scheme to prohibit discrimination in employment on the basis of age. The plan was structured to facilitate and encourage compliance through an informal process of conciliation and mediation. Rogers v. Exxon Research & Engineering Co., 550 F.2d 834, 841 (3rd Cir.1977), cert. denied, 434 U.S. 1022, 98 S.Ct. 749, 54 L.Ed. 2d 770 (1978). A prerequisite to the bringing of a private action is that the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) must be given sixty days notice. 29 U.S.C. § 626(d). This period is designed to give the EEOC time to mediate the grievance “by informal methods of conciliation, conference, and persuasion.” 29 U.S. C. § 626(b). The right to commence a private action, it should be noted, terminates upon the filing of an action by the EEOC. 29 U.S.C. § 626(c). Finally, notification to the EEOC must be given within 180 days after the alleged unlawful actions took place, unless the party is also seeking state relief. 29 U.S.C. § 626(d)(1).
If a violation of substantive rights under the ADEA could be asserted by way of a § 1983 action, the aggrieved party could avoid these specific provisions of the law. The plaintiff would have direct and immediate access to the federal courts, the comprehensive administrative process would be bypassed, and the goal of compliance through mediation would be discarded. The purposes and structure of the ADEA are inconsistent with the notion that the remedies it affords could be supplanted by alternative judicial relief. The inescapable conclusion to be drawn from the foregoing [1367]*1367is that if 42 U.S.C. § 1983 is available to the ADEA litigant, the congressional scheme behind ADEA enforcement could easily be undermined, if not destroyed.2 The very object of bypassing the specific administrative process of the ADEA, one thus assumes, was the principal reason why this action was not brought under the ADEA.
The overriding question presented by this case is whether the availability and detailed procedures of the ADEA foreclose a private action brought under § 1983 to enforce substantive rights specifically addressed and protected by the ADEA. May the Plaintiff, in other words, cavalierly bypass the comprehensive process fashioned by Congress in the ADEA by merely asserting a violation of a constitutional right rather than the statutory right?
Section 1983, standing alone, cannot withstand preemption by a more comprehensive statutory remedy designed to redress specific unlawful actions, such as those alleged by Zombro, unless the statute in question manifests a congressional intent to allow an individual a choice of pursuing independently rights under both the statutory scheme and some other applicable federal statute. In Middlesex County Sewerage Authority v. National Sea Clammers, 453 U.S. 1, 101 S.Ct. 2615, 69 L.Ed.2d 435 (1981), the Supreme Court instructed that “when [the state] is alleged to have violated a federal statute which provides its own comprehensive enforcement scheme, the requirements of that enforcement procedure may not be bypassed by bringing suit directly under § 1983.” Id. at 20, 101 S.Ct. at 2626, quoting Chapman v. Houston Welfare Rights Organization, 441 U.S. 600, 673 n. 2, 99 S.Ct. 1905, 1945 n. 2, 60 L.Ed.2d 508 (1979) (Stewart, J., dissenting).
The Supreme Court has suggested that a § 1983 action is foreclosed, “where the governing statute provides an exclusive remedy for violation of its terms.” Pennhurst State School and Hospital v. Halderman, 451 U.S. 1, 28, 101 S.Ct. 1531, 1545, 67 L.Ed.2d 694 (1981), quoting Maine v. Thiboutot, 448 U.S. 1, 22 n. 11, 100 S.Ct. 2502, 2514 n. 11, 65 L.Ed.2d 555 (1980) (Powell, J., dissenting); see also National Sea Clammers, supra at 20-21, 101 S.Ct. at 2626-27; Great American Federal Savings and Loan Association v. Novotny, 442 U.S. 366, 375-78, 99 S.Ct. 2345, 2350-52, 60 L.Ed.2d 957 (1979).
In Novotny the Supreme Court ruled that a Title VII violation could not be asserted by way of 42 U.S.C. § 1985(3), the conspiracy counterpart of § 1983. To allow such an action, the Court reasoned, would eviscerate the comprehensive statutory scheme enacted by Congress in Title VII, including express time limitations, opportunity for conciliation, investigation by the EEOC, etc. Id. at 373-96, 99 S.Ct. at 2349-61.
Novotny was applied in National Sea Clammers, supra, to proscribe a private action under § 1983. The Supreme Court held that a § 1983 action was barred because Congress had created a detailed statutory enforcement scheme under the Water Pollution Control Act, 33 U.S.C. § 1251, et seq., and the Marine Protection, Research, and Sanctuaries Act, 33 U.S.C. § 1401, et seq. The framework available under the ADEA is no less specific and comprehensive.
In the controversy sub judice, however, the Baltimore City Police Department is alleged to have violated for purposes of § 1983 not the ADEA, but the equal protection clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. The Plaintiffs decision to bring this employment discrimination case under the Fourteenth Amendment without even passing reference to the ADEA makes this an unusual case.
In H.R. v. Hornbeck, 524 F.Supp. 215 (D.Md.1981), the court turned down a § 1983 action predicated on a claim under the equal protection clause of the Fourteenth Amendment which was presented with other actions on the same matter [1368]*1368brought under the Rehabilitation Act of 1973, 29 U.S.C. § 794, the Education of All Handicapped Children Act of 1975, 20 U.S.C. § 1401, and the Civil Rights Act of 1871, 42 U.S.C. § 1983 (based on Title VII). Relying on Novotny, the court rejected all the claims, including the Fourteenth Amendment claim, because the plaintiffs failed to exhaust the comprehensive administrative procedures provided in the various handicap discrimination statutes. “To assert as a constitutional claim the selfsame rights which Congress has endeavored to protect through specific statutory schemes [is prohibited] ... until the remedies provided by the administrative process have been exhausted.” Hornbeck, supra at 222.
The Supreme Court has similarly demonstrated a disinclination to entertain § 1983 actions in which plaintiffs have bypassed a comprehensive statutory remedy in favor of a § 1983 claim predicated on an alleged constitutional violation. In Preiser v. Rodriguez, 411 U.S. 475, 93 S.Ct. 1827, 36 L.Ed.2d 439 (1973), the court turned down prisoners’ attempts to disregard the specific remedy of the habeas corpus statute in favor of an action under § 1983 alleging violations of constitutional rights. In Smith v. Robinson, 468 U.S. 992, 104 S.Ct. 3457, 82 L.Ed.2d 746 (1984), the court similarly held that the Education of the Handicapped Act, 20 U.S.C. § 1400, et seq., spelled out the exclusive remedy for the plaintiffs, notwithstanding the fact that constitutional claims had been raised.
In Brown v. General Services Administration, 425 U.S. 820, 96 S.Ct. 1961, 48 L.Ed.2d 402 (1976), a § 1981 action, the Supreme Court held that § 717 of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, as added by § 11 of the Equal Employment Opportunity Act of 1972, 42 U.S.C. § 2000e-16 (1970 ed., Supp. IV), was the exclusive remedy for challenging racial discrimination in federal employment even though such discrimination “clearly violated ... the Constitution.” Id. at 824-25, 96 S.Ct. at 1963-64.
In Scruggs v. Campbell, 630 F.2d 237 (4th Cir.1980), the parents of a handicapped child brought a federal action under 20 U.S.C. § 1415(e)(2) (Education of All Handicapped Children Act), 29 U.S.C. § 794 (Rehabilitation Act) and 42 U.S.C. § 1983 while a state administrative proceeding was pending. The District Court dismissed the action and we affirmed stating at page 239:
The district court correctly recognized that the federal action was premature because the Scruggs had not exhausted their administrative remedies under either the Education for All Handicapped Children Act or the Rehabilitation Act. Myers v. Bethlehem [Shipbuilding] Corp., 303 U.S. 41, 50-52, 58 S.Ct. 459, 463-64, 82 L.Ed. 638 (1938). The Scruggs’ allegation that their administrative remedies were futile is refuted by the final administrative decision in their favor. Moreover, the Scruggs’ citation of 42 U.S.C. § 1983, which does not require exhaustion of administrative remedies, did not entitle them to prevail in their race to the courthouse.
See also Turillo v. Tyson, 535 F.Supp. 577 (D.R.I.1982) (Education for All Handicapped Children Act’s remedial devices found sufficiently comprehensive to infer congressional intent to withdraw § 1983 remedy).
These cases evince a prudential policy that where Congress has provided a comprehensive remedial framework, such as the ADEA, a plaintiff is not relieved of the obligation to follow that remedial procedure by claiming that state action violative of the statutory scheme also violates the Fourteenth Amendment (or some other constitutional right). A mere assertion that constitutional rights have been somehow infringed does not ipso facto defeat the coverage, application and exclusivity of a comprehensive statutory scheme specifically enacted by Congress to redress the alleged violation of rights.
This Court is not unaware that the case at bar can be distinguished from many of the cases cited above insofar as the § 1983 claim sub judice is predicated on an alleged constitutional violation only and does not rest in part or in whole on alleged violations of substantive rights under the ADEA or some other comprehensive statutory scheme. Nevertheless, the general [1369]*1369policy of precluding § 1983 suits, where Congress has enacted a comprehensive statute specifically designed to redress grievances alleged by the plaintiff, is as applicable in instances such as the case at bar as cases where a constitutional claim is attached to a statutory claim brought under § 1983. We hold that this policy should be followed unless the legislative history of the comprehensive statutory scheme in question manifests a congressional intent to allow an individual to pursue independently rights under both the comprehensive statutory scheme and other applicable state and federal statutes, such as 42 U.S.C. § 1983. We find no such intent in the language and history of the ADEA.
An examination of the Act reveals that it is a precisely drawn, detailed statute, similar to other statutory schemes which have been held to provide the exclusive judicial remedy for a stated abuse. The conclusion is irresistible that the ADEA provides the exclusive judicial remedy for claims of age discrimination. Platt v. Burroughs Corp., 424 F.Supp. 1329, 1340 (E.D.Pa.1976). A number of federal courts have similarly opined that substantive rights secured by the ADEA may not be used as the basis for a § 1983 suit. See, e.g., Paterson v. Wein-berger, 644 F.2d 521, 524 (5th Cir.1981) (following the extension of the ADEA to federal employees, the ADEA became exclusive remedy for age discrimination in federal employment); Ring v. Crisp County Hospital Authority, 652 F.Supp. 477, 482 (M.D.Ga.1987) (“ADEA is the exclusive remedy for claims of age discrimination, whether those claims are founded on the Constitution or on rights created by the ADEA. It is the underlying conduct and not the rights asserted that determine the remedy.”); McCroan v. Bailey, 543 F.Supp. 1201, 1209-10 (S.D.Ga.1982) (rights created by ADEA cannot be enforced through § 1983); Morgan v. Humboldt County School District, 623 F.Supp. 440, 443 (D.Nev.1985) (§ 1983 action preempted by ADEA where plaintiffs claim fails to allege facts showing a violation of some federally secured right other than those already protected by the ADEA); Christie v. Marston, 451 F.Supp. 1142, 1145 (N.D.Ill.1978) (“Congress intended the ADEA to be the exclusive remedy for age discrimination in federal employment.”)
The text and context of the ADEA itself confirm this conclusion: “The provisions of this chapter shall be enforced in accordance with the powers, remedies, and procedures provided in sections 211(b), 216 (except for subsection (a) thereof)_” 29 U.S.C. § 626(b). Section 216 is a part of the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA), 29 U.S.C. §§ 201, et seq., and it has been held that the statutory remedy of that section is the sole remedy available to the employee for enforcement of whatever rights he may have under the FLSA. Lerwill v. Inflight Motion Pictures, Inc., 343 F.Supp. 1027 (N.D.Calif.1972).
The provisions of the ADEA, we thus conclude, evidence congressional intent to foreclose actions for age discrimination under § 1983. To allow such actions would only circumvent the obvious congressional mandate, as well as the detailed procedures of the Act. It is implausible that Congress would have intended to preserve the private cause of action under § 1983 for age discrimination when that cause of action would severely undermine, if not debilitate, the enforcement mechanism created by Congress under the ADEA. Congress, we believe, did not intend to permit plaintiffs to bypass the comprehensive statutory scheme clearly embodied in the language and legislative history of the ADEA merely because they are employed by an agency operating under color of state law.
In addition to congressional intent evident in the ADEA to foreclose age discrimination suits under § 1983, we also conclude that additional factors exist counselling hesitation before recognizing a § 1983 remedy in an age discrimination case. The laws of the State of Maryland and the City of Baltimore, as well as well-established public policy, recognize that government employers, especially police departments, must have wide discretion and control over the management of their personnel and internal operations. This is particularly true in a police department, a paramilitary depart[1370]*1370ment, where internal discipline and public safety require that a police commissioner be afforded broad discretion and authority to assign and reassign members of the department to various posts.3 In a case involving the dismissal of a probationary civil servant, the Supreme Court emphasized the “well-established rule that the Government has traditionally been granted the widest latitude in the ‘dispatch of its own internal affairs.’ ” Sampson v. Murray, 415 U.S. 61, 83, 94 S.Ct. 937, 949, 39 L.Ed.2d 166 (1974). The governmental employer-employee relationship was a significant factor in Arnett v. Kennedy, 416 U.S. 134, 155, 94 S.Ct. 1633, 1644, 40 L.Ed.2d 15 (1974), which held a civil service employee had no due process right to a pre-termi-nation evidentiary hearing. Justice Powell, in a concurring opinion, emphatically stated that the “Government, as an employer, must have wide discretion and control over the management of its personnel and internal affairs.” Id. at 168, 94 S.Ct. at 1651. We therefore conclude, in the light of the existence of comprehensive ADEA remedies, the employer-employee relationship in this case — involving police discipline, morale and public safety — is a special factor that counsels hesitation in recognizing a constitutional cause of action absent affirmative contrary indications from Congress. See Purtill v. Harris, 658 F.2d 134, 137-138 (3rd Cir.1981) (ADEA preempts judicial remedies based directly on the Constitution for claims of age discrimination in federal employment).
The court today declines to construct from the spacious contours of the equal protection clause a generalized federal right of action to encompass every conceivable grievance in the workplace. Congress conceived and enacted a precise statutory remedy, the ADEA, to redress the unlawful acts alleged by the Plaintiff. If we were to bypass the ADEA, as the Plaintiff seeks to do, we would transfer wholesale public employment relations into the federal courts without any concrete and specific expression of federal constitutional priority-
The source of Zombro’s claim, as well as many other discrimination suits, is the equal protection clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. It is noteworthy that the Supreme Court has stated explicitly that the equal protection clause does not recognize a “class defined as the aged” to be a suspect class in need of special protection in which alleged discrimination is subject to “strict judicial scrutiny." Massachusetts Board of Retirement v. Murgia, 427 U.S. 307, 313-14, 96 S.Ct. 2562, 2566-67, 49 L.Ed.2d 520 (1976).4 Citing United States v. Carolene Products Co., 304 U.S. 144, 152-153 n. 4, 58 S.Ct. 778, 783-784 n. 4, 82 L.Ed. 1234 (1938), the Murgia Court stated that “old age does not define a ‘discrete and insular’ group ... in need of ‘extraordinary protection from the majori-tarian political process.’ ” 427 U.S. at 313, 96 S.Ct. at 2566.
This Court, following the instructions of the Supreme Court, has readily acknowledged the validity of § 1983 actions predicated on race, sex, or religious discrimination or an infringement of specific First Amendment rights.5 Apart from impermis[1371]*1371sible race or sex discrimination or First Amendment violations, we have declined to intervene in the multitude of personnel and management decisions made daily in public agencies.
In Clark v. Whiting, 607 F.2d 634 (4th Cir.1979), this Court addressed constitutional claims of denial of equal protection and due process brought under § 1983. In Clark a university professor challenged denial of tenure. The court determined that it lacked jurisdiction over the case. We reasoned:
Federal courts thus have never been hesitant to intervene on constitutional grounds in the hiring, discharge or promotion of public employees, including academic personnel, where the asserted claim is that the action taken was tainted by racial or sex discrimination or was intended to penalize for the exercise of First Amendment rights. But, absent such impermissible sex or racial discrimi-nations or First Amendment restraints— clear violations of positive express constitutional or statutory mandate — “[t]he federal court is not the appropriate forum in which to review the multitude of personnel decisions that are made daily by public agencies. We must accept the harsh fact that numerous individual mistakes are inevitable in the day-to-day administration of our affairs. The United States Constitution cannot feasibly be construed to require federal judicial review for every such error. In the absence of any claim that the public employer was motivated by a desire to curtail or to penalize the exercise of an employee’s constitutionally protected rights, we must presume that official action was regular and, if erroneous, can best be corrected in other ways. The Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment is not a guarantee against incorrect or ill-advised personnel decisions.”
607 F.2d at 638-39 (footnote omitted).
Courts are not qualified to review and substitute their judgment for these subjective, discretionary judgments of professional experts on faculty promotions or to engage independently in an intelligent informal comparison of the scholarly contributions or teaching talents of one faculty member denied promotion with those of another faculty member granted a promotion; in short, courts may not engage in “second-guessing” the University authorities in connection with faculty promotions.
Id. at 640.
We find Zombro’s claim as asserted under the Fourteenth Amendment, based upon alleged discriminatory transfer, is not justiciable. There is no claim of denial of equal protection based upon race or sex or discrimination based upon the exercise of protected First Amendment rights. Admittedly, the ADEA may constitute “positive express statutory mandate” under Clark. In his complaint, however, Zombro has made no claim under the ADEA.
B.
Zombro’s claim under 42 U.S.C. § 1985 alleges that the Police Commissioner conspired with the police department to deny him equal protection because of his age. Section 1985(3) requires a conspiracy “of two or more persons.” Zombro has not alleged such a conspiracy. The Department is not a person. The Police Commissioner as head of the Department cannot be held to have entered into a conspiracy with the Department. Buschi v. Kirven, 775 F.2d 1240, 1251-53 (4th Cir.1985). A department may not conspire with itself. The claim under 42 U.S.C. § 1985 must be dismissed because it does not allege facts upon which relief can be granted. Fed.R. Civ.P. 12(b)(6).
[1372]*1372For the reasons stated herein, the judgment of the district court is
AFFIRMED.