Johnson v. Transportation Agency, 25 March 1987.
The plaintiff challenged an affirmative action plan adopted by the defendant employer which took into consideration sex as one factor in promotion.  The plan had been voluntarily adopted by the defendant and was intended to achieve a statistically measurable yearly improvement in hiring and promoting minorities and women in job classifications where they were underrepresented in order to obtain a work force whose composition reflected the proportion of minorities and women in the area labor force. While setting no quotas, it required that short-range goals be established and annually adjusted. Under it, the plaintiff who was rated as well qualified as a woman applicant was passed over in favor of the woman applicant.  The Court upheld the plan and its practice of taking sex into consideration as one factor in promotion.  It ruled that the plan represented a moderate, flexible, case-by-case approach to effecting a gradual improvement in the representation of minorities and women in the defendant's work force and was not in violation of Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which prohibits discrimination on the basis of sex.
D000569:Americas; D019049:Developed Countries; D004467:Economics; D004651:Employment; D006280:Health Workforce; D007603:Jurisprudence; D009656:North America; D011287:Prejudice; D012940:Social Problems; D014481:United States
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