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Coger v. Board of Regents of the State of Tennessee,
154 F.3d 296 (6th Cir. (Tenn.) Aug. 17, 1998)
This ADEA case was brought by seventeen senior faculty members
at the University of Memphis, alleging that the University’s salary increase
and faculty evaluation programs were being used discriminatorily against older
faculty. A bench trial ensued. About this time, the Supreme Court decided Seminole
Tribe v. Florida, 517 U.S. 44 (1996), in which it addressed the issue of the
States’ Eleventh Amendment immunity from suit. The University filed a motion
to dismiss based on the University’s claim that they were now immune from
suit under Seminole Tribe. The district court granted the motion, and the
faculty members appealed.
The Sixth Circuit began its analysis by noting that the
sovereign immunity clause of the Eleventh Amendment can be abrogated by Congress
pursuant to enforcement provisions of the Fourteenth Amendment. In Seminole
Tribe, the Supreme Court established a two-part inquiry for determining whether
Congress abrogated the States’ immunity when enacting a particular statute.
The Court held that, absent a state’s waiver, states retain their sovereign
immunity unless: (1) Congress unequivocally expressed its intent to abrogate the
immunity, and (2) Congress acted pursuant to a valid exercise of its enforcement
power under Section 5 of the Fourteenth Amendment. The Seminole Tribe Court
said that, in order to satisfy the first prong of the test, Congress must make
its intent to abrogate the States’ immunity unmistakably clear.
The Sixth Circuit, in addressing the case at hand, said
it must first decide whether Congress made its intent unmistakably clear to abrogate
the States’ sovereign authority when it enacted the 1974 amendments to the
ADEA, which extended the ADEA’s applicability to the States. The court held
that Congress’s intent to abrogate the States’ immunity was sufficiently
clear because the amendment’s definition of "employer" expressly
included state and local governments. Furthermore, the 1974 legislation defined
the term "employee" as persons subject to the civil service laws of
a State government.
Having determined that Congress did unquestionably intend
to abrogate the States’ Eleventh Amendment immunity in extending ADEA coverage
to the States, the Sixth Circuit turned to the question of whether Congress’s
enactment of the 1974 amendments to the ADEA was a valid exercise of its enforcement
authority under Section 5 of the Fourteenth Amendment. The court noted that Section
1 of the Fourteenth Amendment provides that no state shall deny to any person
within its jurisdiction the equal protection of its laws, while Section 5 grants
Congress the enforcement power to effectuate the goals of the amendment. The Court
of Appeals noted that the Supreme Court held in Katzenbach v. Morgan, 384
U.S. 641 (1966), that a statute is appropriate legislation under Section 5 of
the Fourteenth Amendment if the enactment is plainly adapted to enforcing the
Equal Protection Clause and not prohibited by, but consistent with, the Constitution.
The Court of Appeals noted that the ADEA was passed after
extensive study of the effects of age discrimination, which revealed that older
workers were being deprived of employment on the basis of inaccurate stereotypes.
The court noted that the 1974 amendments focused on the need to remedy the problem
of age discrimination. The court found that the emphasis on the injustice of age
discrimination indicated that the 1974 amendments were remedial legislation enacted
under Congress’s Section 5 power. Furthermore, the Court of Appeals found
that the remedy that Congress enacted was proportionate to the conduct that Congress
sought to eliminate. In so holding, the Court of Appeals noted that the Supreme
Court had ruled that the Equal Protection Clause was enacted to secure every person
within the States’ jurisdiction against intentional and arbitrary discrimination.
Having found that Congress intended to abrogate the States’
immunity from suit by its enactment of the 1974 amendments to the ADEA and that
Congress had the authority to do so, the Court of Appeals reversed the judgment
of the district court and remanded the case. The State of Tennessee appealed this
judgment.
The Supreme Court took this case up on appeal, vacated
the Sixth Circuit’s judgment, and remanded the case back to the Sixth Circuit
for further consideration in light of Kimel v. Florida Board of Regents,
120 S.Ct. 631 (2000). In Kimel, the Supreme Court ruled that, although
the ADEA does contain a clear statement of Congress’s intent to abrogate
the States’ immunity, that abrogation exceeded Congress’s authority
under Section 5 of the Fourteenth Amendment. The high Court said that the substantive
requirements that the ADEA imposed on state and local governments were disproportionate
to any unconstitutional conduct that conceivably could be targeted by the Act.
The Supreme Court said that age was not a suspect classification under the Equal
Protection Clause, and, therefore, States may discriminate on the basis of age
for any rational reason.
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