Justices, in Blow to Reagan, Uphold Affirmative Action : Broad Ruling Endorses Racial Quotas, Timetables

The Supreme Court gave sweeping approval today to affirmative action plans to help blacks and other minorities get jobs, rejecting the Reagan Administration view that such plans discriminate against whites.

The justices, ruling 6 to 3 in a case from Cleveland and 5 to 4 in one from New York, endorsed wide-ranging affirmative action schemes covering both promotions and hiring--and including specific numerical quotas and timetables for action.

An exuberant civil rights leader called the court rulings an “overwhelming repudiation” of the affirmative action stand taken by President Reagan and his top legal aides, but one dissenting justice warned that the court was dangerously close to making the effort to eliminate job bias “a one-way racial street.”

In an opinion by Justice William J. Brennan Jr., the oldest and most liberal member of the nation’s highest tribunal, the court said federal courts may, “in appropriate cases, provide relief . . . that benefits individuals who were not the actual victims of a defendant’s discriminatory practices.”

‘Dismantle Prior Patterns’

That view was a direct rejection of the Administration’s arguments that such plans could be used only to aid those who could prove that they had been victims of discrimination.

“The purpose of affirmative action is not to make identified victims whole, but rather to dismantle prior patterns of employment discrimination and to prevent discrimination in the future,” Brennan said in the New York case.

“Such relief is provided to the class as a whole rather than to individual members . . . and beneficiaries need not show that they were themselves victims of discrimination.”

Brennan said agreements between employers and minority groups may provide racial preferences even more extensive than a federal court would have awarded after a trial. He said such agreements do not amount to unlawful “reverse discrimination” against white males.

One case was brought by the Cleveland chapter of the International Assn. of Firefighters challenging an agreement between the city and a group of minority firefighters to promote minorities. The other involved a New York City local of the Sheet Metal Workers’ International Assn., which was ordered by a federal court to increase its non-white membership to 29% and to hire an administrator to oversee the program.

‘Strict Racial Quota’

Justice Byron R. White, who dissented from both decisions, said in the New York case that the federal court had “established not just a minority membership goal but also a strict racial quota that the union was required to attain. We have not heretofore approved this kind of racially discriminatory hiring practice, and I would not do so now.”

In the Cleveland case, White said the majority’s acceptance of the deal struck by the city and a group of minority firefighters to make up for past discrimination undermines the law so much that it effectively becomes “a one-way racial street, thus dis-serving the goal of ending racial discrimination in this country.”

The rulings represent a major defeat for the Reagan Administration, which sought to limit on-the-job racial preferences.

The Administration has been in the forefront of the opponents of broad racial preferences, with Reagan advocating a “colorblind society.” The Administration has said quotas should be banned because they injure the innocent, usually white males.

Civil rights leaders hailed the court’s decision; Ralph Neas, head of the Leadership Conference on Civil Rights, called it a “tremendous victory for civil rights.”

‘Overwhelming Repudiation’

“It is an overwhelming repudiation of the Meese-Reynolds attempts to undermine affirmative action,” he said referring to Atty. Gen. Edwin Meese III and his top assistant for civil rights enforcement, William Bradford Reynolds.

Rep. Don Edwards (D-San Jose), chairman of the House civil rights subcommittee, said the high court “recognizes that in order to get beyond racism and sexism, we often must take race and sex into consideration. It’s both silly and naive to think that we live in a color- and gender-blind society that would allow the passive policies of the Justice Department to work.”

White, Chief Justice Warren E. Burger and Justice William H. Rehnquist dissented from the Cleveland ruling, and Justice Sandra Day O’Connor filed a concurrence.

Burger, White and Rehnquist also dissented in the New York case, with O’Connor, in a separate opinion, dissenting in part and concurring in part.

The two affirmative action cases were among a series of related disputes that have made their way to the high court since 1984, when the justices ruled in a case from Memphis, Tenn., called the Stotts decision, that a federal court could not order whites to be laid off before blacks with less seniority.

The Administration interpreted the ruling to mean that minority hiring quotas are unconstitutional and that only those who can prove they have been actual victims of discrimination can get special treatment from the courts or agreements with employers.