Page 6-Thursday, June 28, 1979-The Michigan Daily REVERSES APPEALS COUR TIN WEBER CASE Supreme (Continued from Page 3i used in the special preference programs, but offered scant guidance for lower courts as to when quotas are permissible. AT ISSUE in Weber's case was the in- tent of Congress when it passed one por- tion of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 called Title 7. Weber argued - successfully in two lower courts - that he was the vic- tim of illegal "reverse discrimination" because Title 7 protects whites as well as blacks from racial bias. But the law "does not condemn all private, voluntary, race-conscious af- firmative action plans," Justice William Brennan wrote for the majority. He said the statute was designed in- stead to open employment oppor- tunities to blacks. "IT WOULD BE ironic indeed ifa law triggered by a nation's concern over centuries of racial injustice and inten- ded to improve the lot of those who had been excluded from the American dream for so long constituted the first Court upholds affirmative action legislative prohibition of all voluntary, private, race-conscious efforts to abolish traditional patterns of racial segregation and hierarchy," Brennan wrote. But Justice William Rehnquist, in a stinging dissent joined by Chief Justice Warren Burger, said the court's decision betrayed the spirit of "equality" for both races - whites and blacks - in the act. "There is no device more destructive to the notion of equality than the ... quota," which creates castes - "a two-edged sword that must demean one in order to prefer the other," Rehnquist said. WEBER, WHO initiated the em- ployment sequel to last year's Bakke "reverse discrimination" college ad- missions case, said he was surprised by his loss. "I was pretty confidentI would win," he told a news conference in New Orleans. Weber, a 32-year-old lab worker at Kaiser's Gramercy, La., plant, sued in 1974 after being excluded from a craft training program. The on-the-job training program, begun by Kaiser in conjunction with the United Steelworkers union, was aimed at landing more blacks in higher paying positions. THE PROGRAM accepted black and white employees on a one-for-one basis. For every black chosen, a white was chosen. Had trainees been selected solely on a seniority basis, no blacks would have been included in the Gramercy program. In 1974, 39 per cent of the local work- force was black, and 15 per cent of Kaiser's Gramercy plant workers were black. But less than two per cent of the plant's craft workers - five of 273 - were black. KAISER DID not blame itself for the obvious racial disparity in skilled jobs. It attributed the disparity to a lack of training opportunities for blacks in the building trades industry. The court's decision did not discuss sexual discrimination. But because it was based on a federal law that bans sexual bias as well as racial bias in em- ployment, the ruling also represents a big victory for the women's rights movement. Weber's case was seen by civil rights leaders as potentially far more impor- tant than last June's "Bakke" decision, in which the court upheld the idea that race may be taken into account in a university's admissions decisions. IN LAST June's decision, however, the court ruled that Allan Bakke, who is white, had been illegally excluded from a California medical school. Bakke was subsequently admitted. The justices, by a 5-4 vote, struck down an admissions policy that made race the only factor in considering ap- plications for a certain number of class openings. The Bakke ruling was based on a sec- tion of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, known as Title 6, which was not ad- dressed in the Weber case. Title 6 bans racial discrimination by institutions receiving federal funds. IF THE voluntary use of affirmative action had been wiped out, civil rights leaders said, all government efforts to help minorities and women to improve their status in private industry could have been affected. Many legal scholars believe some laws are successful only so far as they can stimulate voluntary compliance - thus affecting a much wider sphere than government agencies and the courts can monitor. "We need not today define in detail the line of demarcation between per- missible and impermissible affir- mative action plans," Justice William J. Brennan, Jr. wrote for the court. "It suffices to hold that the challenged affirmative action plan falls on the permissible side of the line," he said. "What we have here is a total lack of respect for the law!" y > s . Burt Reynolds "SmokeyANmHE Bandit" Sally Field Jerry Reed and Jackie Gleason ,sse,=,rB-T s5 ce Screenplay by JAMES LEE BARRETT and CHARLES SHYER & ALAN MANDEL - Story by HAL NEEDHAM & ROBERT L LEVY Muskc by BILL JUSTIS and JERRY REED - Directed by HAL NEEDHAM Produced by MORT ENGELBERG . ... . . A RASTAR Production A UNIVERSAL Picture - Technicolor R -. MCA- %- Y . PG nuKTU sIIi al 603 east liberty -. £ Starts Tomorrow MICHIGAN MON.-TUE.-THUR.-FRI.7:30-9:30 Theatre Ph 665-6290 SAT.-SUN.-WED. 1:30-3 30-5:30-7:30-9:30 Civil rights leader, unions rejoice over Weber ruling From AP and UPI WASHINGTON - Organized labor and civil rights groups welcomed the Supreme Court decision today upholding the right of employers to use quotas to give blacks and members of other racial minorities a lift up the job ladder. Albert Zack, a spokesman for the AFL-CIO, called the decision "a big victory." "It is exactly the position we took all along - that affirmative action programs are quite legal," Zack said. IN LOUISVILLE, Ky., where the National Association for the Advan- cement of Colored People (NAACP) is holding its 70th annual convention, Ben- jamin Hooks, the civil rights group's executive director, said the court's ruling "vindicates my faith" and "makes common sense." "We had been looking for a decision favorable to the affirmative action con- cept in this nation," Hooks said. Hooks said most union leaders around the nation support affirmative action. However, he conceded white rank-and-file members might oppose the Weber ruling. "I'M VERY concerned about white acceptance of this decision," Hooks said. Hooks said he was fearful the case would be headlined "reverse discrimination upheld" and said the civil rights organization would try to explain to white workers the details of the case. He said the case involved a Louisiana community that was 49 per cent black and a factory where less than 25 per cent of the workers and less than two per cent of the skilled workers are black. "Had we lost this case, it was our prediction that the cause of affirmative action would have been set back 10 years. The nation will now once again be confronted with the reality of the fact that we still have a long way to go, Hooks said. ONE OF THE NAACP's top labor ex- perts, William Oliver of Detroit, an NAACP executive committee member and director of fair practice programs for the United Auto Workers, said the decision would prevent management from resisting affirmative action plans because of doubts over their legality. Philip Kurland, a University of Chicago authority on constitutional law, said he was disappointed by the decision. He called it "a step beyond equality" and said, "Race relations are not going to be eased," by the decision. Leonard Walentynowicz, lawyer for the Polish-American Congress, said: "Our position has always been that we believe in affirmative action, but we believe it should be available to all minorities, not certain select groups. What grieves us is the court's indif- ference to other groups besides blacks and Hispanics ... Just because you're white, that doesn't mean you've had it made in the past 200 years in America."