The U.S. Department of Justice filed suit against the State of Minnesota, alleging that the state’s hiring laws discriminate on the basis of race and sex.

The USDOJ contends that Minnesota’s civil service hiring law violates Title VII of the Civil Rights Act in multiple respects:

• The law requires consideration of affirmative action goals – which are based on underrepresentation of females and persons of color – for all personnel decisions.
• Goals for women and persons of color must be established if members of those groups are underrepresented, and timetables for satisfying the goals must be set.
• State agencies must evaluate the relevant labor market to quantify “What We Should Look Like” in terms of race and sex demographics. In other words, the state is allegedly making hiring decisions to ensure its workforce demographics match the expected race and sex numbers.
• If a state agency does not meet the affirmative action hiring goals, the hiring manager must justify the “nonaffirmative [sic] action hires” in a pre-hiring justification form, which creates additional burdens when hiring non-diverse candidates.
• State agencies that fail to meet affirmative action hiring goals for two consecutive years are reported to the Governor.
• State agencies that meet affirmative action goals are rewarded with incentives.

According to the USDOJ, these policies for selecting state employees violate Title VII by implementing race- and sex-conscious hiring practices. In effect, race and sex...

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