Washington v. Davis
The Supreme Court ruled that a written test used to screen applicants for the D.C. police force did not violate the Constitution just because a higher percentage of Black applicants failed it than white applicants.
The decision means that under the Constitution, people challenging a government policy as racially discriminatory must show that officials intended to discriminate, not merely that the policy affects one race more than another — a much easier statutory standard used in workplace discrimination lawsuits does not apply to constitutional claims.
“But our cases have not embraced the proposition that a law or other official act, without regard to whether it reflects a racially discriminatory purpose, is unconstitutional solely because it has a racially disproportionate impact.”
The Court's core holding that discriminatory intent, not mere disparate impact, is required for constitutional claims.
How it got here: The trial court upheld the test; the D.C. Circuit reversed, applying Title VII's impact-based standard to the constitutional claim; the Supreme Court agreed to review.
The Case in Depth
What happened
Two Black police officers, later joined by two rejected Black applicants, sued D.C. officials claiming the Metropolitan Police Department's hiring and promotion practices discriminated against Black people. They challenged "Test 21," a verbal skills exam used across the federal government, arguing it disqualified a much higher percentage of Black applicants than white applicants and had no proven connection to job performance.
The question before the Court
Could two Black men who failed a written test to become D.C. police officers show race discrimination just because more Black applicants failed than white applicants?
The Court's answer
No — the Court ruled that showing a test disqualifies a much higher percentage of Black applicants than white applicants is not, by itself, enough to prove a constitutional violation. Under the Fifth and Fourteenth Amendments, a plaintiff must show that the government acted with a racially discriminatory purpose, not just that a neutral policy produces unequal results.
The Court found no such purpose here, pointing to the police department's active efforts to recruit Black officers and the racial composition of the force. It also upheld the test on statutory grounds, finding it sufficiently related to performance in the police training program, which was enough to justify its use even without separate proof linking it to on-the-job performance.
Curious how the Court got there? See the step-by-step legal reasoning →
Why it matters
Governments defending hiring tests, licensing rules, and other policies with racially uneven results can rely on this ruling to avoid constitutional liability unless challengers can show intentional bias. People challenging such policies on constitutional grounds face a higher bar than workers suing under federal employment discrimination law, where impact alone can be enough.
What changes now
This is a final merits decision reversing the D.C. Circuit and reinstating summary judgment for the police department. The applicants' underlying claims were rejected outright, with no remand needed since the trial court's factual findings on the test's job relationship were left undisturbed. The ruling stands as governing precedent for how constitutional race-discrimination claims are analyzed going forward.
What this does not decide
The Court did not decide whether Test 21 would satisfy Title VII's disparate-impact standard, which was not properly before it, and it left open whether disproportionate impact alone might ever be enough to prove unconstitutional discrimination in especially extreme or unexplainable circumstances.
Concurrences and dissents
Concurrence — Justice Stevens
Justice Stevens agreed with the outcome but stressed that the line between discriminatory purpose and discriminatory impact is not as sharp as the majority suggests, since intent is often inferred from objective results. He rested his agreement on narrower grounds, emphasizing the test's neutral literacy purpose and its wide use across the federal government, without relying on the department's good-faith recruitment efforts.
Dissent — Justice Brennan
“Thus, there is no proof of a correlation — either direct or indirect — between Test 21 and performance of the job of being a police officer.”Brennan's objection that the test was never shown to relate to actual police work.
Justice Brennan, joined by Justice Marshall, argued the Court should not have reached the statutory questions at all since they were not properly presented, but having done so, would have held that the test failed to satisfy Title VII's job-relatedness standard. He argued the record lacked proof that success in the training program actually reflected or predicted job performance as a police officer, contrary to Griggs and Albemarle Paper Co.
How the Court got there
The legal reasoning, step by step
- The Court distinguished the constitutional standard for race discrimination claims from the statutory standard under Title VII, the federal law banning workplace discrimination, holding that the two are not identical.
- Under the Constitution's equal protection guarantee, the Court explained, a law or policy is not unconstitutional merely because it has a disproportionate racial impact; a plaintiff must show that officials acted with a racially discriminatory purpose, drawing on the Court's jury-discrimination and school-segregation cases.
- The Court acknowledged that a stark statistical disparity can sometimes serve as evidence from which discriminatory intent may be inferred, but held that such an inference was not warranted here given the police department's active recruitment of Black officers and the racial makeup of the force.
- Applying this purpose-based test, the Court found Test 21 to be neutral on its face and rationally connected to a legitimate government goal of ensuring verbal competence, so the disparate failure rate alone did not establish a constitutional violation.
- Turning to the statutory claims, the Court held that the trial court correctly found Test 21 sufficiently related to performance in the police training program, which was enough to validate the test even without separate proof that it predicted on-the-job performance as a sworn officer.
Doctrinal impact
Cases affected by this decision
Distinguishes Griggs v. Duke Power Co. (401 U.S. 424)
The Court held Griggs' impact-based Title VII standard does not govern constitutional discrimination claims.