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Full Opinion
FRANKS ET AL.
v.
BOWMAN TRANSPORTATION CO., INC., ET AL.
Supreme Court of United States.
*749 Morris J. Baller argued the cause for petitioners. With him on the briefs were Jack Greenberg, James M. Nabrit III, Barry L. Goldstein, Eric Schnapper, John R. Myer, and Elizabeth R. Rindskopf.
William M. Pate argued the cause and filed a brief for respondent Bowman Transportation Co., Inc.
Michael H. Gottesman argued the cause for respondent United Steelworkers of America. With him on the joint briefs for this respondent and for the American Federation of Labor and Congress of Industrial Organizations as amicus curiae urging reversal were Elliot Bredhoff, Robert M. Weinberg, Bernard Kleiman, Carl Frankel, Jerome A. Cooper, James W. Dorsey, J. Albert Woll, and Laurence Gold.[*]
*750 MR. JUSTICE BRENNAN delivered the opinion of the Court.
This case presents the question whether identifiable applicants who were denied employment because of race after the effective date and in violation of Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, 78 Stat. 253, as amended, 42 U. S. C. § 2000e et seq. (1970 ed. and Supp. IV), may be awarded seniority status retroactive to the dates of their employment applications.[1]
Petitioner Franks brought this class action in the United States District Court for the Northern District of Georgia against his former employer, respondent Bowman Transportation Co., and his unions, the International Union of District 50, Allied and Technical Workers of the United States and Canada, and its local, No. 13600,[2] alleging various racially discriminatory employment practices in violation of Title VII. Petitioner Lee intervened on behalf of himself and others similarly situated alleging racially discriminatory hiring and discharge *751 policies limited to Bowman's employment of over-the-road (OTR) truck drivers. Following trial, the District Court found that Bowman had engaged in a pattern of racial discrimination in various company policies, including the hiring, transfer, and discharge of employees, and found further that the discriminatory practices were perpetrated in Bowman's collective-bargaining agreement with the unions. The District Court certified the action as a proper class action under Fed. Rule Civ. Proc. 23 (b) (2) and, of import to the issues before this Court, found that petitioner Lee represented all black applicants who sought to be hired or to transfer to OTR driving positions prior to January 1, 1972. In its final order and decree, the District Court subdivided the class represented by petitioner Lee into a class of black nonemployee applicants for OTR positions prior to January 1, 1972 (class 3), and a class of black employees who applied for transfer to OTR positions prior to the same date (class 4).
In its final judgment entered July 14, 1972, the District Court permanently enjoined the respondents from perpetuating the discriminatory practices found to exist, and, in regard to the black applicants for OTR positions, ordered Bowman to notify the members of both sub-classes within 30 days of their right to priority consideration for such jobs. The District Court declined, however, to grant to the unnamed members of classes 3 and 4 any other specific relief sought, which included an award of backpay and seniority status retroactive to the date of individual application for an OTR position.
On petitioners' appeal to the Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit, raising for the most part claimed inadequacy of the relief ordered respecting unnamed members of the various subclasses involved, the Court of Appeals affirmed in part, reversed in part, and vacated in part. 495 F. 2d 398 (1974). The Court of Appeals *752 held that the District Court had exercised its discretion under an erroneous view of law insofar as it failed to award backpay to the unnamed class members of both classes 3 and 4, and vacated the judgment in that respect. The judgment was reversed insofar as it failed to award any seniority remedy to the members of class 4 who after the judgment of the District Court sought and obtained priority consideration for transfer to OTR positions.[3] As respects unnamed members of class 3nonemployee black applicants who applied for and were denied OTR positions prior to January 1, 1972the Court of Appeals affirmed the District Court's denial of any form of seniority relief. Only this last aspect of the Court of Appeals' judgment is before us for review under our grant of the petition for certiorari. 420 U. S. 989 (1975).
I
Respondent Bowman raises a threshold issue of mootness. The District Court found that Bowman had hired petitioner Lee, the sole-named representative of class 3, and had subsequently properly discharged him for cause,[4] and the Court of Appeals affirmed. Bowman argues that since Lee will not in any event be eligible *753 for any hiring relief in favor of OTR nonemployee discriminatees, he has no personal stake in the outcome and therefore the question whether nonemployee discriminatees are entitled to an award of seniority when hired in compliance with the District Court order is moot. Bowman relies on Sosna v. Iowa, 419 U. S. 393 (1975), and Board of School Comm'rs v. Jacobs, 420 U. S. 128 (1975). That reliance is misplaced.
Sosna involved a challenge to a one-year residency requirement in a state divorce statute. The District Court properly certified the action as a class action. However, before the case reached this Court, the named representative satisfied the state residency requirement (and had in fact obtained a divorce in another State). 419 U. S., at 398, and n. 7. Although the named representative no longer had a personal stake in the outcome, we held that "[w]hen the District Court certified the propriety of the class action, the class of unnamed persons described in the certification acquired a legal status separate from the interest asserted by [the named representative]," id., at 399, and, accordingly the "cases or controversies" requirement of Art. III of the Constitution was satisfied. Id., at 402.[5]
It is true as Bowman emphasizes that Sosna was an instance of the "capable of repetition, yet evading review" aspect of the law of mootness. Id., at 399-401. And that aspect of Sosna was remarked in Board of School Comm'rs v. Jacobs, supra, a case which was held to *754 be moot.[6] But nothing in our Sosna or Board of School Comm'rs opinions holds or even intimates that the fact that the named plaintiff no longer has a personal stake in the outcome of a certified class action renders the class action moot unless there remains an issue "capable of repetition, yet evading review."[7] Insofar as the concept of mootness defines constitutionally minimal conditions for the invocation of federal judicial power, its meaning and scope, as with all concepts of justiciability, must be derived from the fundamental policies informing the "cases or controversies" limitation imposed by Art. III.
"As is so often the situation in constitutional adjudication, those two words have an iceberg quality, containing beneath their surface simplicity submerged complexities which go to the very heart of our constitutional form of government. Embodied *755 in the words `cases' and `controversies' are two complementary but somewhat different limitations. In part those words limit the business of federal courts to questions presented in an adversary context and in a form historically viewed as capable of resolution through the judicial process. And in part those words define the role assigned to the judiciary in a tripartite allocation of power to assure that the federal courts will not intrude into areas committed to the other branches of government." Flast v. Cohen, 392 U. S. 83, 94-95 (1968).
There can be no question that this certified class action "clearly presented" the District Court and the Court of Appeals "with a case or controversy in every sense contemplated by Art. III of the Constitution." Sosna, supra, at 398. Those courts were presented with the seniority question "in an adversary context and in a form historically viewed as capable of resolution through the judicial process." Flast, supra, at 95. The only constitutional mootness question is therefore whether, with regard to the seniority issues presented, "a live controversy [remains] at the time this Court reviews the case." Sosna, supra, at 402.
The unnamed members of the class are entitled to the relief already afforded Lee, hiring and backpay, and thus to that extent have "such a personal stake in the outcome of the controversy [whether they are also entitled to seniority relief] as to assure that concrete adverseness which sharpens the presentation of issues upon which the court so largely depends for illumination of difficult. . . questions." Baker v. Carr, 369 U. S. 186, 204 (1962). Given a properly certified class action, Sosna contemplates that mootness turns on whether, in the specific circumstances of the given case at the time it is before this Court, an adversary relationship sufficient to *756 fulfill this function exists.[8] In this case, that adversary relationship obviously obtained as to unnamed class members with respect to the underlying cause of action and also continues to obtain as respects their assertion that the relief they have received in entitlement to consideration for hiring and backpay is inadequate without further award of entitlement to seniority benefits. This becomes crystal clear upon examination of the circumstances and the record of this case.
The unnamed members of the class involved are identifiable individuals, individually named in the record. Some have already availed themselves of the hiring relief ordered by the District Court and are presently employed as OTR drivers by Bowman. Tr. of Oral Arg. 23. The conditions of that employment are now and so far as can be foreseen will continue to be partially a function of their status in the seniority system. The rights of other members of the class to employment under the District Court's orders are currently the subject of further litigation in that court. Id., at 15. No questions are raised concerning the continuing desire of any of these class members for the seniority relief presently in issue. No questions are raised concerning the tenacity and competence of their counsel in pursuing that mode of legal relief before this Court. It follows that there is no meaningful sense in which a "live controversy" reflecting the issues before the Court could *757 be found to be absent.[9] Accordingly, Bowman's mootness argument has no merit.
II
In affirming the District Court's denial of seniority relief to the class 3 group of discriminatees, the Court of Appeals held that the relief was barred by § 703 (h) of Title VII, 42 U. S. C. § 2000e-2 (h). We disagree. Section 703 (h) provides in pertinent part:
"Notwithstanding any other provision of this title, it shall not be an unlawful employment practice for an employer to apply different standards of compensation, or different terms, conditions, or privileges of employment pursuant to a bona fide seniority or merit system . . . provided that such differences are not the result of an intention to discriminate because of race, color, religion, sex, or national origin . . . ."
The Court of Appeals reasoned that a discriminatory refusal to hire "does not affect the bona fides of the seniority system. Thus, the differences in the benefits and conditions of employment which a seniority system accords to older and newer employees is protected [by § 703 (h)] as `not an unlawful employment practice.' " 495 F. 2d, at 417. Significantly, neither Bowman nor the unions undertake to defend the Court of Appeals' judgment on that ground. It is clearly erroneous.
The black applicants for OTR positions composing class 3 are limited to those whose applications were put *758 in evidence at the trial.[10] The underlying legal wrong affecting them is not the alleged operation of a racially discriminatory seniority system but of a racially discriminatory hiring system. Petitioners do not ask for modification or elimination of the existing seniority system, but only for an award of the seniority status they would have individually enjoyed under the present system but for the illegal discriminatory refusal to hire. It is this context that must shape our determination as to the meaning and effect of § 703 (h).
On its face, § 703 (h) appears to be only a definitional provision; as with the other provisions of § 703, subsection (h) delineates which employment practices are illegal and thereby prohibited and which are not.[11] Section 703 (h) certainly does not expressly purport to qualify or proscribe relief otherwise appropriate under the remedial provisions of Title VII, § 706 (g), 42 U. S. C. § 2000e-5 (g), in circumstances where an illegal discriminatory act or practice is found. Further, the legislative history of § 703 (h) plainly negates its reading as limiting *759 or qualifying the relief authorized under § 706 (g). The initial bill reported by the House Judiciary Committee as H. R. 7152[12] and passed by the full House on February 10, 1964,[13] did not contain § 703 (h). Neither the House bill nor the majority Judiciary Committee Report[14] even mentioned the problem of seniority. That subject thereafter surfaced during the debate of the bill in the Senate. This debate prompted Senators Clark and Case to respond to criticism that Title VII would destroy existing seniority systems by placing an interpretive memorandum in the Congressional Record. The memorandum stated: "Title VII would have no effect on established seniority rights. Its effect is prospective and not retrospective." 110 Cong. Rec. 7213 (1964).[15] Senator Clark also placed in the Congressional Record a Justice Department statement concerning Title VII which stated: "[I]t has been asserted that Title VII would undermine vested rights of seniority. This is not *760 correct. Title VII would have no effect on seniority rights existing at the time it takes effect." Id., at 7207.[16] Several weeks thereafter, following several informal *761 conferences among the Senate leadership, the House leadership, the Attorney General and others, see Vaas, Title VII: Legislative History, 7 B. C. Ind. & Com. L. Rev. 431, 445 (1966), a compromise substitute bill prepared by Senators Mansfield and Dirksen, Senate majority and minority leaders respectively, containing § 703 (h) was introduced on the Senate floor.[17] Although the Mansfield-Dirksen substitute bill, and hence § 703 (h), was not the subject of a committee report, see generally Vaas, supra, Senator Humphrey, one of the informal conferees, later stated during debate on the substitute that § 703 (h) was not designed to alter the meaning of Title VII generally but rather "merely clarifies its present intent and effect." 110 Cong. Rec. 12723 (1964). Accordingly, whatever the exact meaning and scope of § 703 (h) in light of its unusual legislative history and the absence of the usual legislative materials, see Vaas, supra, at 457-458, it is apparent that the thrust of the section is directed toward defining what is and what is not an illegal discriminatory practice in instances in which the post-Act operation of a seniority system is challenged as perpetuating the effects of discrimination occurring prior to the effective date of the Act. There is no indication in the legislative materials that § 703 (h) was intended to modify or restrict *762 relief otherwise appropriate once an illegal discriminatory practice occurring after the effective date of the Act is provedas in the instant case, a discriminatory refusal to hire. This accords with the apparently unanimous view of commentators, see Cooper & Sobol, Seniority and Testing Under Fair Employment Laws: A General Approach to Objective Criteria of Hiring and Promotion, 82 Harv. L. Rev. 1598, 1632 (1969); Stacy, Title VII Seniority Remedies in a Time of Economic Downturn, 28 Vand. L. Rev. 487, 506 (1975).[18] We therefore hold that the Court of Appeals erred in concluding that, as a matter of law, § 703 (h) barred the award of seniority relief to the unnamed class 3 members.
III
There remains the question whether an award of seniority relief is appropriate under the remedial provisions of Title VII, specifically, § 706 (g).[19]
*763 We begin by repeating the observation of earlier decisions that in enacting Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, Congress intended to prohibit all practices in whatever form which create inequality in employment opportunity due to discrimination on the basis of race, religion, sex, or national origin, Alexander v. Gardner-Denver Co., 415 U. S. 36, 44 (1974); McDonnell Douglas Corp. v. Green, 411 U. S. 792, 800 (1973); Griggs v. Duke Power Co., 401 U. S. 424, 429-430 (1971), and ordained that its policy of outlawing such discrimination should have the "highest priority," Alexander, supra, at 47; Newman v. Piggie Park Enterprises, Inc., 390 U. S. 400, 402 (1968). Last Term's Albemarle Paper Co. v. Moody, 422 U. S. 405 (1975), consistently with the congressional plan, held that one of the central purposes of Title VII is "to make persons whole for injuries suffered on account of unlawful employment discrimination." Id., at 418. To effectuate this "make whole" objective, Congress in § 706 (g) vested broad equitable discretion in the federal courts to "order such affirmative action as may be appropriate, which may include, but is not limited to, reinstatement or hiring of employees, with or without back pay . . . , or any other equitable relief as the court deems appropriate." The legislative history supporting *764 the 1972 amendments of § 706 (g) of Title VII[20] affirms the breadth of this discretion. "The provisions of [§ 706 (g)] are intended to give the courts wide discretion exercising their equitable powers to fashion the most complete relief possible. . . . [T]he Act is intended to make the victims of unlawful employment discrimination whole, and . . . the attainment of this objective . . . requires that persons aggrieved by the consequences and effects of the unlawful employment practice be, so far as possible, restored to a position where they would have been were it not for the unlawful discrimination." Section-by-Section Analysis of H. R. 1746, accompanying the Equal Employment Opportunity Act of 1972Conference Report, 118 Cong. Rec. 7166, 7168 (1972). This is emphatic confirmation that federal courts are empowered to fashion such relief as the particular circumstances of a case may require to effect restitution, making whole insofar as possible the victims of racial discrimination in hiring.[21] Adequate relief may well be *765 denied in the absence of a seniority remedy slotting the victim in that position in the seniority system that would have been his had he been hired at the time of *766 his application. It can hardly be questioned that ordinarily such relief will be necessary to achieve the "makewhole" purposes of the Act.
Seniority systems and the entitlements conferred by credits earned thereunder are of vast and increasing importance in the economic employment system of this Nation. S. Slichter, J. Healy, & E. Livernash, The Impact of Collective Bargaining on Management 104-115 (1960). Seniority principles are increasingly used to allocate entitlements to scarce benefits among competing employees ("competitive status" seniority) and to compute noncompetitive benefits earned under the contract of employment ("benefit" seniority). Ibid. We have already said about "competitive status" seniority that it "has become of overriding importance, and one of its major functions is to determine who gets or who keeps an available job." Humphrey v. Moore, 375 U. S. 335, 346-347 (1964). "More than any other provision of the collective [-bargaining] agreement . . . seniority affects the economic security of the individual employee covered by its terms." Aaron, Reflections on the Legal Nature and Enforceability of Seniority Rights, 75 Harv. L. Rev. 1532, 1535 (1962). "Competitive status" seniority also often plays a broader role in modern employment systems, particularly systems operated under collective-bargaining agreements:
"Included among the benefits, options, and safeguards affected by competitive status seniority, are not only promotion and layoff, but also transfer, demotion, rest days, shift assignments, prerogative in scheduling vacation, order of layoff, possibilities of lateral transfer to avoid layoff, `bumping' possibilities in the face of layoff, order of recall, training opportunities, working conditions, length of layoff endured without reducing seniority, length of layoff *767 recall rights will withstand, overtime opportunities, parking privileges, and, in one plant, a preferred place in the punch-out line." Stacy, 28 Vand. L. Rev., supra, at 490 (footnotes omitted).
Seniority standing in employment with respondent Bowman, computed from the departmental date of hire, determines the order of layoff and recall of employees.[22] Further, job assignments for OTR drivers are posted for competitive bidding and seniority is used to determine the highest bidder.[23] As OTR drivers are paid on a per-mile basis,[24] earnings are therefore to some extent a function of seniority. Additionally, seniority computed from the company date of hire determines the length of an employee's vacation[25] and pension benefits.[26] Obviously merely to require Bowman to hire the class 3 victim of discrimination falls far short of a "make whole" remedy.[27] A concomitant award of the seniority credit he presumptively would have earned but for the wrongful treatment would also seem necessary in the absence of justification for denying that relief. Without an award of seniority dating from the time when he was discriminatorily refused employment, an individual *768 who applies for and obtains employment as an OTR driver pursuant to the District Court's order will never obtain his rightful place in the hierarchy of seniority according to which these various employment benefits are distributed. He will perpetually remain subordinate to persons who, but for the illegal discrimination, would have been in respect to entitlement to these benefits his inferiors.[28]
The Court of Appeals apparently followed this reasoning in holding that the District Court erred in not granting seniority relief to class 4 Bowman employees who were discriminatorily refused transfer to OTR positions. Yet the class 3 discriminatees in the absence of a comparable seniority award would also remain subordinated in the seniority system to the class 4 discriminatees. The distinction plainly finds no support anywhere in Title VII or its legislative history. Settled law dealing with the related "twin" areas of discriminatory hiring and discharges violative of the National Labor Relations Act, 49 Stat. 449, as amended, 29 U. S. C. § 151 et seq., provides a persuasive analogy. "[I]t would indeed be surprising if Congress gave a remedy for the one which it denied for the other." *769 Phelps Dodge Corp. v. NLRB, 313 U. S. 177, 187 (1941). For courts to differentiate without justification between the classes of discriminatees "would be a differentiation not only without substance but in defiance of that against which the prohibition of discrimination is directed." Id., at 188.
Similarly, decisions construing the remedial section of the National Labor Relations Act, § 10 (c), 29 U. S. C. § 160 (c)the model for § 706 (g), Albemarle Paper, 422 U. S., at 419[29]make clear that remedies constituting authorized "affirmative action" include an award of seniority status, for the thrust of "affirmative action" redressing the wrong incurred by an unfair labor practice is to make "the employees whole, and thus restor[e] the economic status quo that would have obtained but for the company's wrongful [act]." NLRB v. Rutter-Rex Mfg. Co., 396 U. S. 258, 263 (1969). The task of the NLRB in applying §10 (c) is "to take measures designed to recreate the conditions and relationships that would have been had there been no unfair labor practice." Carpenters v. NLRB, 365 U. S. 651, 657 (1961) (Harlan, J., concurring). And the NLRB has often required that the hiring of employees who have been discriminatorily refused employment be accompanied by an award of seniority equivalent to that which *770 they would have enjoyed but for the illegal conduct. See, e. g., In re Phelps Dodge Corp., 19 N. L. R. B. 547, 600, and n. 39, 603-604 (1940), modified on other grounds, 313 U. S. 177 (1941) (ordering persons discriminatorily refused employment hired "without prejudice to their seniority or other rights and privileges"); In re Nevada Consolidated Copper Corp., 26 N. L. R. B. 1182, 1235 (1940), enforced, 316 U. S. 105 (1942) (ordering persons discriminatorily refused employment hired with "any seniority or other rights and privileges they would have acquired, had the respondent not unlawfully discriminated against them"). Plainly the "affirmative action" injunction of § 706 (g) has no lesser reach in the district courts. "Where racial discrimination is concerned, `the [district] court has not merely the power but the duty to render a decree which will so far as possible eliminate the discriminatory effects of the past as well as bar like discrimination in the future.' " Albemarle Paper, supra, at 418.
IV
We are not to be understood as holding that an award of seniority status is requisite in all circumstances. The fashioning of appropriate remedies invokes the sound equitable discretion of the district courts. Respondent Bowman attempts to justify the District Court's denial of seniority relief for petitioners as an exercise of equitable discretion, but the record is its own refutation of the argument.
Albemarle Paper, supra, at 416, made clear that discretion imports not the court's " `inclination, but . . . its judgment; and its judgment is to be guided by sound legal principles.' " Discretion is vested not for purposes of "limit[ing] appellate review of trial courts, or . . . invit[ing] inconsistency and caprice," but rather to allow the most complete achievement of the objectives *771 of Title VII that is attainable under the facts and circumstances of the specific case. 422 U. S., at 421. Accordingly the District Court's denial of any form of seniority remedy must be reviewed in terms of its effect on the attainment of the Act's objectives under the circumstances presented by this record. No less than with the denial of the remedy of backpay, the denial of seniority relief to victims of illegal racial discrimination in hiring is permissible "only for reasons which, if applied generally, would not frustrate the central statutory purposes of eradicating discrimination throughout the economy and making persons whole for injuries suffered through past discrimination." Ibid.
The District Court stated two reasons for its denial of seniority relief for the unnamed class members.[30] The first was that those individuals had not filed administrative charges under the provisions of Title VII with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission and therefore class relief of this sort was not appropriate. We rejected this justification for denial of class-based relief in the context of backpay awards in Albemarle Paper, and for the same reasons reject it here. This justification for denying class-based relief in Title VII suits has been unanimously rejected by the courts of appeals, and Congress ratified that construction by the 1972 amendments. Albemarle Paper, supra, at 414 n. 8.
The second reason stated by the District Court was that such claims "presuppose a vacancy, qualification, *772 and performance by every member. There is no evidence on which to base these multiple conclusions." Pet. for Cert. A54. The Court of Appeals rejected this reason insofar as it was the basis of the District Court's denial of backpay, and of its denial of retroactive seniority relief to the unnamed members of class 4. We hold that it is also an improper reason for denying seniority relief to the unnamed members of class 3.
We read the District Court's reference to the lack of evidence regarding a "vacancy, qualification, and performance" for every individual member of the class as an expression of concern that some of the unnamed class members (unhired black applicants whose employment applications were summarized in the record) may not in fact have been actual victims of racial discrimination. That factor will become material however only when those persons reapply for OTR positions pursuant to the hiring relief ordered by the District Court. Generalizations concerning such individually applicable evidence cannot serve as a justification for the denial of relief to the entire class. Rather, at such time as individual class members seek positions as OTR drivers, positions for which they are presumptively entitled to priority hiring consideration under the District Court's order,[31] evidence that particular individuals were not in fact victims of racial discrimination will be material. But petitioners here have carried their burden of demonstrating the existence of a discriminatory hiring pattern and practice by the respondents and, therefore, the burden will be upon respondents to prove that individuals who reapply were not in fact victims of previous hiring discrimination. *773 Cf. McDonnell Douglas Corp. v. Green, 411 U. S. 792, 802 (1973); Baxter v. Savannah Sugar Rfg. Corp., 495 F. 2d 437, 443-444 (CA5), cert. denied, 419 U. S. 1033 (1974).[32] Only if this burden is met may retroactive seniorityif otherwise determined to be an appropriate form of relief under the circumstances of the particular casebe denied individual class members.
Respondent Bowman raises an alternative theory of justification. Bowman argues that an award of retroactive seniority to the class of discriminatees will conflict with the economic interests of other Bowman employees. Accordingly, it is argued, the District Court acted within its discretion in denying this form of relief as an attempt to accommodate the competing interests of the various groups of employees.[33]
*774 We reject this argument for two reasons. First, the District Court made no mention of such considerations in its order denying the seniority relief. As we noted in Albemarle Paper, 422 U. S., at 421 n. 14, if the district court declines, due to the peculiar circumstances of the particular case, to award relief generally appropriate under Title VII, "[i]t is necessary . . . that . . . it carefully articulate its reasons" for so doing. Second, and more fundamentally, it is apparent that denial of seniority relief to identifiable victims of racial discrimination on the sole ground that such relief diminishes the expectations of other, arguably innocent, employees would if applied generally frustrate the central "make whole" objective of Title VII. These conflicting interests of other employees will, of course, always be present in instances where some scarce employment benefit is distributed among employees on the basis of their status in the seniority hierarchy. But, as we have said, there is nothing in the language of Title VII, or in its legislative history, to show that Congress intended generally to bar this form of relief to victims of illegal discrimination, and the experience under its remedial model in the National Labor Relations Act points to the contrary.[34] Accordingly, *775 we find untenable the conclusion that this form of relief may be denied merely because the interests of other employees may thereby be affected. "If relief under Title VII can be denied merely because the majority group of employees, who have not suffered discrimination, will be unhappy about it, there will be little hope of correcting the wrongs to which the Act is directed." United States v. Bethlehem Steel Corp., 446 F. 2d 652, 663 (CA2 1971).[35]
*776 With reference to the problems of fairness or equity respecting the conflicting interests of the various groups of employees, the relief which petitioners seek is only seniority status retroactive to the date of individual application, rather than some form of arguably more complete relief.[36] No claim is asserted that nondiscriminatee employees holding OTR positions they would not have obtained but for the illegal discrimination should be deprived of the seniority status they have earned. It is therefore clear that even if the seniority relief petitioners seek is awarded, most if not all discriminatees who actually obtain OTR jobs under the court order will not truly be restored to the actual seniority that would have existed in the absence of the illegal discrimination. Rather, most discriminatees even under an award of retroactive seniority status will still remain subordinated in the hierarchy to a position inferior to that of a greater total number of employees than would have been the case in the absence of discrimination. *777 Therefore, the relief which petitioners seek, while a more complete form of relief than that which the District Court accorded, in no sense constitutes "complete relief."[37] Rather, the burden of the past discrimination in hiring is with respect to competitive status benefits divided among discriminatee and nondiscriminatee employees under the form of relief sought. The dissent criticizes the Court's result as not sufficiently cognizant that it will "directly implicate the rights and expectations of perfectly innocent employees." Post, at 788. We are of the view, however, that the result which we reach todaywhich, standing alone,[38] establishes that a sharing of the burden of the past discrimination is presumptively necessaryis entirely consistent with any fair characterization of equity jurisdiction,[39] particularly *778 when considered in light of our traditional view that "[a]ttainment of a great national policy . . . must not be confined within narrow canons for equitable relief deemed suitable by chancellors in ordinary private controversies." Phelps Dodge Corp. v. NLRB, 313 U. S., at 188.
Certainly there is no argument that the award of retroactive seniority to the victims of hiring discrimination in any way deprives other employees of indefeasibly vested rights conferred by the employment contract. This Court has long held that employee expectations arising from a seniority system agreement may be modified by statutes furthering a strong public policy interest.[40]Tilton v. Missouri Pacific R. Co., 376 U. S. 169 (1964) (construing §§ 9 (c) (1) and 9 (c) (2) of the Universal Military Training and Service Act, 1948, 50 U. S. C. App. §§ 459 (c) (1) and (2), which provided that a re-employed returning veteran should enjoy the seniority status he would have acquired but for his absence in military service); Fishgold v. Sullivan Drydock & Repair Corp., 328 U. S. 275 (1946) (construing the comparable provision of the Selective Training and Service Act of 1940). The Court has also held that a collective-bargaining agreement may go further, enhancing the seniority status of certain employees for purposes of furthering public policy interests beyond what is required by statute, even though this will to some extent be detrimental to *779 the expectations acquired by other employees under the previous seniority agreement. Ford Motor Co. v. Huffman, 345 U. S. 330 (1953). And the ability of the union and employer voluntarily to modify the seniority system to the end of ameliorating the effects of past racial discrimination, a national policy objective of the "highest priority," is certainly no less than in other areas of public policy interests. Pellicer v. Brotherhood of Ry. & S. S. Clerks, 217 F. 2d 205 (CA5 1954), cert. denied, 349 U. S. 912 (1955). See also Cooper & Sobol, 82 Harv. L. Rev., at 1605.
V
In holding that class-based seniority relief for identifiable victims of illegal hiring discrimination is a form of relief generally appropriate under § 706 (g), we do not in any way modify our previously expressed view that the statutory scheme of Title VII "implicitly recognizes that there may be cases calling for one remedy but not another, andowing to the structure of the federal judiciary these choices are, of course, left in the first instance to the district courts." Albemarle Paper, 422 U. S., at 416. Circumstances peculiar to the individual case may, of course, justify the modification or withholding of seniority relief for reasons that would not if applied generally undermine the purposes of Title VII.[41] In the *780 instant case it appears that all new hirees establish seniority only upon completion of a 45-day probationary period, although upon completion seniority is retroactive to the date of hire. Certainly any seniority relief ultimately awarded by the District Court could properly be cognizant of this fact. Amici and the respondent union point out that there may be circumstances where an award of full seniority should be deferred until completion of a training or apprenticeship program, or other preliminaries required of all new hirees.[42] We do not undertake to delineate all such possible circumstances here. Any enumeration must