Morton v. Mancari

Background

Non-Indian employees of the Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA) sued after the BIA extended a long-standing Indian employment preference to promotions. They argued the Equal Employment Opportunity Act of 1972 repealed the 1934 Indian Reorganization Act’s preference and that the preference violated the Fifth Amendment’s due process protections. A three-judge federal court held the 1972 law repealed the preference and permanently enjoined its enforcement; the Government and an Indian employee group appealed.

Reasoning

The Court asked two main questions: whether Congress implicitly repealed the 1934 preference when it adopted the 1972 anti-discrimination rules, and whether the preference is unconstitutional. The Court found no clear congressional intent to repeal. It relied on earlier 1964 exemptions for tribal and reservation employers, subsequent congressional actions favoring Indian programs, the long coexistence of preferences with Executive Orders, and the rule that repeals by implication are disfavored. On the constitutional question, the Court concluded the preference is tied to the political and trust relationship between the Federal Government and federally recognized tribes and is meant to promote tribal self-government, not racial discrimination. The Court therefore reversed the lower court’s judgment.

Real world impact

The ruling allows the BIA’s Indian preference statutes and policies to continue being applied, preserving the statutory program to increase tribal participation in BIA jobs. The decision leaves for later any narrow questions about the precise scope of the preference (for example, specific promotion rules) and sends the case back to the lower court for further proceedings consistent with the opinion.