Kimel v. Florida Board of Regents

Kimel v. Florida Board of Regents, 528 U.S. 62 (2000), was a United States Supreme Court case that determined that the Congress's enforcement powers under the Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution did not extend to the abrogation of state sovereign immunity under the Eleventh Amendment where the discrimination complained of was rationally based on age.
Facts and result.
Employees of Florida State University and Florida International University, including J. Daniel Kimel, Jr., sued under the Age Discrimination in Employment Act of 1967 (the ADEA) because failure to adjust pay had a disparate impact on older employees. Wellington Dickson sued his employer, the Florida Department of Corrections, for not promoting him because of his age. Roderick MacPherson and Marvin Narz, who were associate professors at the University of Montevallo in Alabama, sued under the ADEA law alleging an evaluation system that discriminated against the elderly. The cases of Kimel, Dickson, MacPherson and Narz were consolidated on appeal to the Eleventh Circuit, and remained consolidated when the Supreme Court granted certiorari.
"Kimel" invalidated the ADEA insofar as it allowed plaintiffs to sue states for money damages.
Legal background.
"Kimel" concerned the ability of Congress to override the states' "sovereign immunity" using its power under the Fourteenth Amendment. Sovereign immunity is a principle that originally comes from English law and referred to the immunity of the English monarch from suit. Sovereign immunity, according to the Supreme Court in "Hans v. Louisiana" (1890), normally prevents a state from being sued by its own citizens in federal court. This bar against suit, the Court said, came from the Eleventh Amendment, even though the express terms of that amendment provide only that citizens of one state cannot sue another state.
In "Fitzpatrick v. Bitzer" (1976), however, the Court made an exception to that usual rule. "Fitzpatrick" held that Congress could use its power under section 5 of the Fourteenth Amendment—which allows Congress to enforce the substantive terms of the Fourteenth Amendment, including the Equal Protection Clause, by positive legislation—to override state sovereign immunity. But in 1997, in "City of Boerne v. Flores", the Court limited congressional power to override state sovereign immunity using the Fourteenth Amendment, and for the first time required "congruence and proportionality" between the constitutional wrong and the congressionally enacted remedy to protect constitutional rights. "Boerne" held that it was the Court, and only the Court, that could determine what constituted a constitutional wrong, and that Congress could not permissibly increase the level of constitutional protection beyond that which the Court had recognized. Specifically, "Boerne" interpreted the scope of section 5 of the Fourteenth Amendment, which states, "The Congress shall have power to enforce, by appropriate legislation, the provisions of this article."
The Court in "Kimel" based its decision in large part on "Boerne". The importance of "Kimel" was the strict limits it placed on the ability of Congress to abrogate the states' sovereign immunity under section 5 of the Fourteenth Amendment.
Opinion of the Court.
Justice O'Connor, writing for the majority, stated that Congress in enacting the ADEA had properly declared its intent to subject states to suits for money damages by private individuals. The Court then noted that under the Court's equal protection jurisprudence, "age is not a suspect classification," and laws which classify on the basis of age need only pass the Court's "rational basis review" test, as opposed to legal classifications based on race or gender, where a "history of purposeful unequal treatment" leads the Court to apply strict scrutiny to such laws. The Court then contrasted rational basis review with the ADEA, which prohibits "all" employment discrimination on the basis of age, except where age is a "bona fide occupational qualification." The ADEA, the Court concluded, "prohibits substantially more state employment decisions and practices than would likely be held unconstitutional under the applicable equal protection, rational basis standard." Therefore, the ADEA's remedy failed the "congruence and proportionality" test required by "Boerne" and so was not "a valid exercise of constitutional authority" under Section 5 of the Fourteenth Amendment.
In explaining the application of rational basis review to classifications based on age, the majority stated:
Justice Stevens's dissenting opinion said, "There is not a word in the text of the Constitution supporting the Court's conclusion that the judge-made doctrine of sovereign immunity limits Congress' power to authorize private parties, as well as federal agencies, to enforce federal law against the States." Justice Stevens referred to the doctrine of sovereign immunity as expanded by "Seminole Tribe v. Florida" and "Alden v. Maine" as "judicial activism."