Justices Uphold Landmark Rights Ruling but Limit It : Harassment Suits Make Difficult

The Supreme Court voted unanimously today to leave intact a historic civil rights ruling used to combat discrimination, but at the same time limited its scope to make it harder for women and minorities to sue for racial harassment.

The high court, in the most important civil rights case of its term, decided against overturning the landmark 1976 ruling that upheld a post-Civil War law outlawing racial discrimination in all private contracts.

But in the same ruling the justices split along conservative and liberal lines, voting 5 to 4 in holding that the law does not cover racial harassment lawsuits.

The high court had touched off an uproar last year when it announced it would consider reversing the 1976 ruling. That ruling largely settled the debate over whether civil rights guarantees enacted after the Civil War protected blacks from discrimination by private entities as well as acts by government.

Civil rights groups expressed relief that the landmark ruling survived, but they charged that a string of recent Supreme Court rulings had severely restricted the protections under civil rights laws.

While women and minorities can still sue for racial harassment under the civil rights laws adopted in the 1960s and 1970s, these measures do not provide for punitive damages and for the broad protections found in the 1866 law.

“This Supreme Court has been a disaster for all those committed to equal employment opportunity,” civil rights leader Benjamin Hooks said after the ruling.

It marked the fourth decision handed down by the Supreme Court this term that dealt a setback to civil rights activists.

‘A Serious Threat’

“Taken separately, each of these retreats would be a source of genuine concern. Together they are a serious threat to the 35 years of progress we have achieved toward a better and fairer society,” Sen. Edward M. Kennedy (D-Mass.) said.

The court refused to apply the 1976 ruling to racial harassment suits against employers for conduct after an employment contract has been entered into.

“Racial harassment relating to the conditions of employment is not actionable because (the law) does not apply to conduct which occurs after the formation of a contract, “ Justice Anthony M. Kennedy said for the court majority.

Justice William J. Brennan, the court’s leading liberal and a strong supporter of a broad legal interpretation of the civil rights law, issued a blistering dissent.

“What the court declines to snatch away with one hand, it takes with the other,” Brennan said.

Joining Brennan in partial dissent were Justices Thurgood Marshall, Harry A. Blackmun and John Paul Stevens.

The five-member conservative majority that voted against applying the anti-discrimination law to harassment cases consisted of Kennedy, Chief Justice William H. Rehnquist and Justices Sandra Day O’Connor, Antonin Scalia and Byron R. White.

The case involved a black woman, Brenda Patterson, who sought punitive damages from her employer for alleged on-the-job racial harassment at a credit union in North Carolina.