League of Academic Women v. Regents of the University of California

343 F. Supp. 636, 1972 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 13536, 4 Empl. Prac. Dec. (CCH) 7878, 4 Fair Empl. Prac. Cas. (BNA) 808
CourtDistrict Court, N.D. California
DecidedMay 26, 1972
DocketC-72-265
StatusPublished
Cited by33 cases

This text of 343 F. Supp. 636 (League of Academic Women v. Regents of the University of California) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering District Court, N.D. California primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
League of Academic Women v. Regents of the University of California, 343 F. Supp. 636, 1972 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 13536, 4 Empl. Prac. Dec. (CCH) 7878, 4 Fair Empl. Prac. Cas. (BNA) 808 (N.D. Cal. 1972).

Opinion

MEMORANDUM AND ORDER ON DEFENDANTS’ MOTIONS TO DISMISS

RENFREW, District Judge.

I

The complaint in this action seeks declaratory and injunctive relief against the defendants to prevent them from continuing to discriminate in hiring and employment at the Berkeley campus of the University of California and in the office of the President of the University at University Hall (these two units hereinafter referred to as the “Berkeley complex”) on the basis of sex against the named individual plaintiffs and all other women in their respective classes. The complaint also seeks equitable redress for past discriminatory acts of the defendants.

The plaintiffs in this action are the League of Academic Women, twelve individual named plaintiffs, and the class of women which they seek to represent. Named plaintiff League of Academic Women, is a common-law association of women employees and women students at the Berkeley complex. Of the twelve individual named plaintiffs, three are members of the academic staff at the Berkeley complex, one is a former academic employee there, five are currently employed on the nonacademic staff, and three are presently enrolled as graduate students and are potential employees of the University. The class which these named plaintiffs seek to represent is composed of all women presently employed, or employed at some time during the past five years, at the Berkeley complex, and all women qualified for such employment. Named as defendants in this action are the Regents of the University of California, a corporation charged with the administration of the University of California as a public trust (Cal.Constitution, Art. IX, section 9); each individual Regent in his official capacity; Albert Bowker, Chancellor for the Berkeley Division of the University of California, sued individually and in his official capacity; and Charles Hitch, President of the University of California, sued individually and in his official capacity.

Plaintiffs attempt to invoke the jurisdiction of this Court to secure the protection and redress the deprivation of rights secured by 42 U.S.C. § 1981, 42 U.S.C. § 1983, the 14th Amendment to the United States Constitution, and sections 1 and 11 of Article I and section 18 of Article XX of the California Constitution. The jurisdiction of this action is predicated upon 28 U.S.C. §§ 1331 and 1343 and 28 U.S.C. §§ 2201 and 2202. The matter is now before this Court on defendants’ motion to dismiss the complaint for failure to state a claim *638 upon which relief can be granted and for lack of jurisdiction. 1

II

The first cause of action alleged in the complaint is that the policies and practices of defendants deny to plaintiffs and to the class they represent an equal right to make and enforce employment contracts as is enjoyed by white male citizens. Plaintiffs contend that these acts constitute a violation of 42 U.S.C. § 1981. 2 It is well established that section 1981 applies to employment discrimination, and defendants do not dispute this principle. Jones v. Mayer, 392 U.S. 409, 88 S.Ct. 2186, 20 L.Ed.2d 1189 (1968); Waters v. Wisconsin Steel Works of Int’l. Harvester Co., 427 F.2d 476 (7 Cir. 1970); Sanders v. Dobbs Houses, Inc., 431 F.2d 1097 (5 Cir. 1970). However, defendants do dispute the applicability of section 1981 to this case on the grounds that the section applies solely to racial discrimination, and is therefore unavailable to support plaintiffs’ charges of sex-based discrimination. Plaintiffs would urge that section 1981 has a much broader scope than racial discrimination, and should be read by this Court to apply to their allegations of sex discrimination in the present case.

As authority for their limited reading of section 1981, defendants rely principally on Georgia v. Rachel, 384 U.S. 780, 86 S.Ct. 1783, 16 L.Ed.2d 925 (1966). There, in a discussion of the legislative history of the Civil Rights Act of 1866, Mr. Justice Stewart stated:

“The legislative history of the 1866 Act clearly indicates that Congress intended to protect a limited category of rights, specifically defined in terms of racial equality. As originally proposed in the Senate, § 1 of the bill that became the 1866 Act did not contain the phrase ‘as is enjoyed by white citizens’. That phrase was later added in committee in the House, apparently to emphasize the racial character of the rights being protected” (384 U.S. at 791, 86 S.Ct. at 1789).

Plaintiffs’ attempt to distinguish Rachel as “irrelevant” in that the Court there discussed only section 1 of the Civil Rights Act of 1866 and did not mention section 1981. Plaintiffs do concede that section 1981 is derived in part from section 1 of the Civil Rights Act of 1866. However, plaintiffs argue that section 16 of the 1870 re-enactment of the Civil Rights Act produced a substantial change in the scope of section 1 of the 1866 Act which is now embodied in section 1981. The change referred to is the difference in the language of section 1 of the 1866 Act, which refers to “all persons born in the United States and not subject to any foreign power,” and of section 1981, which reads “All persons within the jurisdiction of the United States * * *.” From this change in language, plaintiffs conclude that the protection of the statute was extended to persons other than blacks. Plaintiffs further reason that the expansion to include “all persons” means that the statute must be read to allow women a cause of action for deprivation of their rights due to sex discrimination.

There is a fatal defect in plaintiffs’ line of reasoning. Section 1981 was enacted to protect the rights *639 of two groups of people — non-whites and non-citizens who were not afforded equal treatment to white citizens. The standard against which the rights of these individuals must be measured is the rights of white citizens. The change in language to include “all people” was designed to include non-citizens and persons not born in the United States within the coverage of the Act. The amendment was not so broad as to extend coverage to all rights of all people. The “all persons” language of the statute speaks only to the issue of to which persons the Act applies. It does not purport to delineate the rights accorded those individuals. The standard against which the rights of the protected individuals must be matched remains the rights of white citizens.

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343 F. Supp. 636, 1972 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 13536, 4 Empl. Prac. Dec. (CCH) 7878, 4 Fair Empl. Prac. Cas. (BNA) 808, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/league-of-academic-women-v-regents-of-the-university-of-california-cand-1972.