In the original lawsuit of Martin v. Wilks, several black firefighters brought actions against the City of Birmingham, Alabama, and the Jefferson County Personnel Board in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Alabama. They alleged that the defendants engaged in racially discriminatory hiring and promotion practices in violation of Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and other federal law. Consent decrees were eventually entered that included goals for hiring blacks as firefighters and for promoting them. The district court retained jurisdiction over the decrees.

Seven white firefighters subsequently brought suit against the same defendants, alleging that they were being denied promotions in favor of less qualified blacks in violation of Title VII and the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. They argued that the defendants were making promotion decisions on the basis of race in reliance on the consent decrees, which constituted impermissible racial discrimination. The plaintiffs sought injunctive relief against enforcement of the decrees. The City and the Board admitted making “numerous race conscious promotion and employment decisions” but claimed that the promotions were lawful because they were made pursuant to the decrees.

The defendants then moved to dismiss the reverse discrimination case as impermissible collateral attacks. On December 15, 1987, Judge Tjoflat held that individual firefighters were not parties to the consent decrees and were not precluded by the decrees from bringing an independent lawsuit alleging unlawful “reverse discrimination.” 833 F.2d 1492 (11th Cir. 1987). The Supreme Court affirmed the Eleventh Circuit’s judgment. 490 U.S. 75 (1989).

In 1991, more than ten years after the City consent decree was entered, the District Court for the Northern District of Alabama held a trial on the claim that the City’s use of race when making promotions violated both Title VII and the Equal Protection Clause. The court applied a strict scrutiny review to the decree and found that the City was justified in entering the decree and that the City’s use of race under the decree was “limited and tailored to the relief necessary to overcome the employment effects of past discrimination by the City." 806 F. Supp. 926 (N.C. Ala. 1992). Accordingly, the court denied the firefighters’ claims.

However, the district court at trial did not separately evaluate the Title VII and Equal Protection Clause claims. Instead, the Court of Appeals evaluated the claims separately on May 4, 1994, and reversed the holdings of the district court. With regard to the Title VII claim, Judge Black concluded that the promotion provision of the City’s affirmative action plan unnecessarily trammels the rights of nonblack firefighters by establishing a rigid, arbitrarily selected quota of 50% annual black promotions. As to the Equal Protection Clause claim, Judge Black held that the City did not properly consider efficacy of alternatives to race-based promotional quota system for purposes of determining whether the quota plan was narrowly tailored to accomplish compelling purpose. 20 F.3d 1525 (11th Cir. 1994).

On February 24, 1997, one of the plaintiffs filed a motion to amend complaint but his motion was denied by Judge Sam C. Pointer. On May 15, 1997, several movants moved to intervene but was denied as untimely by Judge Pointer.

From 1998 to 2004, the plaintiffs filed joint stipulations of dismissal one after another pursuant to a settlement agreement and the court dismissed each of their cases with prejudice. The details of the settlement agreement were not made public. There has been no docket activity since 2004 and this case is deemed closed.

Sichun Liu - 01/13/2020


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