440 U.S. 568 (1979)

NEW YORK CITY TRANSIT AUTHORITY ET AL.
v.
BEAZER ET AL.

No. 77-1427.

Supreme Court of United States.

Argued December 6, 1978. Decided March 21, 1979. CERTIORARI TO THE UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS FOR THE SECOND CIRCUIT.

*570 Joan Offner argued the cause for petitioners. With her on the briefs were Alphonse E. D' Ambrose and Helen R. Cassidy.

Deborah M. Greenberg argued the cause for respondents. With her on the brief were Eric D. Balber, Michael Meltsner, and Mark C. Morril.^[*]

MR. JUSTICE STEVENS delivered the opinion of the Court.

The New York City Transit Authority refuses to employ persons who use methadone. The District Court found that this policy violates the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. In a subsequent opinion, the court also held that the policy violates Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. The Court of Appeals affirmed without reaching the statutory question. The departure by those courts from the procedure normally followed in addressing statutory and constitutional *571 questions in the same case, as well as concern that the merits of these important questions had been decided erroneously, led us to grant certiorari.^[1] 438 U. S. 904. We now reverse.

The Transit Authority (TA) operates the subway system and certain bus lines in New York City. It employs about 47,000 persons, of whom many—perhaps most—are employed in positions that involve danger to themselves or to the public. For example, some 12,300 are subway motormen, towermen, conductors, or bus operators. The District Court found that these jobs are attended by unusual hazards and must be performed by "persons of maximum alertness and competence." 399 F. Supp. 1032, 1052 (SDNY 1975). Certain other jobs, such as operating cranes and handling high-voltage equipment, are also considered "critical" or "safety sensitive," while still others, though classified as "noncritical," have a potentially important impact on the overall operation of the transportation system.^[2]

TA enforces a general policy against employing persons *572 who use narcotic drugs. The policy is reflected in Rule 11 (b) of TA's Rules and Regulations.

"Employees must not use, or have in their possession, narcotics, tranquilizers, drugs of the Amphetamine group or barbiturate derivatives or paraphernalia used to administer narcotics or barbiturate derivatives, except with the written permission of the Medical Director—Chief Surgeon of the System."

Methadone is regarded as a narcotic within the meaning of Rule 11 (b). No written permission has ever been given by TA's medical director for the employment of a person using methadone.^[3]

*573 The District Court found that methadone is a synthetic narcotic and a central nervous system depressant. If injected into the bloodstream with a needle, it produces essentially the same effects as heroin.^[4] Methadone has been used legitimately in at least three ways—as a pain killer, in "detoxification units" of hospitals as an immediate means of taking addicts off of heroin,^[5] and in long-range "methadone maintenance programs" as part of an intended cure for heroin addiction. See 21 CFR § 310.304 (b) (1978). In such programs the methadone is taken orally in regular doses for a prolonged period. As so administered, it does not produce euphoria or any pleasurable effects associated with heroin; on the contrary, it prevents users from experiencing those effects *574 when they inject heroin, and also alleviates the severe and prolonged discomfort otherwise associated with an addict's discontinuance of the use of heroin.

About 40,000 persons receive methadone maintenance treatment in New York City, of whom about 26,000 participate in the five major public or semipublic programs,^[6] and 14,000 are involved in about 25 private programs.^[7] The sole purpose of all these programs is to treat the addiction of persons who have been using heroin for at least two years.

Methadone maintenance treatment in New York is largely governed by regulations promulgated by the New York State Drug Abuse Control Commission. Under the regulations, the newly accepted addict must first be detoxified, normally in a hospital. A controlled daily dosage of methadone is then prescribed. The regulations require that six doses a week be administered at a clinic, while the seventh day's dose may be taken at home. If progress is satisfactory for three months, additional doses may be taken away from the clinic, although *575 throughout most of the program, which often lasts for several years, there is a minimum requirement of three clinic appearances a week. During these visits, the patient not only receives his doses but is also counseled and tested for illicit use of drugs.^[8]

The evidence indicates that methadone is an effective cure for the physical aspects of heroin addiction. But the District Court also found "that many persons attempting to overcome heroin addiction have psychological or life-style problems which reach beyond what can be cured by the physical taking of doses of methadone." 399 F. Supp., at 1039. The crucial indicator of successful methadone maintenance is the patient's abstinence from the illegal or excessive use of drugs and alcohol. The District Court found that the risk of reversion to drug or alcohol abuse declines dramatically after the first few months of treatment. Indeed, "the strong majority" of patients who have been on methadone maintenance for at least a year are free from illicit drug use.^[9] But a significant *576 number are not. On this critical point, the evidence relied upon by the District Court reveals that even among participants with more than 12 months' tenure in methadone maintenance programs, the incidence of drug and alcohol abuse may often approach and even exceed 25%.^[10]

This litigation was brought by the four respondents as a class action on behalf of all persons who have been, or would in the future be, subject to discharge or rejection as employees of TA by reason of participation in a methadone maintenance program. Two of the respondents are former employees of TA who were dismissed while they were receiving methadone treatment.^[11] The other two were refused employment by TA, one both shortly before and shortly after the successful conclusion of his methadone treatment,^[12] and the other while he *577 was taking methadone.^[13] Their complaint alleged that TA's blanket exclusion of all former heroin addicts receiving methadone treatment was illegal under the Civil Rights Act of 1866, Rev. Stat. § 1977, 42 U. S. C. § 1981, Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, 78 Stat. 253, as amended, 42 U. S. C. § 2000e et seq., and the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment.

The trial record contains extensive evidence concerning the success of methadone maintenance programs, the employability of persons taking methadone, and the ability of prospective employers to detect drug abuse or other undesirable characteristics of methadone users. In general, the District Court concluded that there are substantial numbers of methadone users who are just as employable as other members of the general population and that normal personnel-screening procedures—at least if augmented by some method of obtaining information from the staffs of methadone programs—would enable TA to identify the unqualified applicants on an individual basis. 399 F. Supp., at 1048-1051. On the other hand, the District Court recognized that at least one-third of the persons receiving methadone treatment—and probably a good many more—would unquestionably be classified as unemployable.^[14]

*578 After extensively reviewing the evidence, the District Court briefly stated its conclusion that TA's methadone policy is unconstitutional. The conclusion rested on the legal proposition that a public entity "cannot bar persons from employment on the basis of criteria which have no rational relation to the demands of the jobs to be performed." Id., at 1057. Because it is clear that substantial numbers of methadone users are capable of performing many of the jobs at TA, the court held that the Constitution will not tolerate a blanket exclusion of all users from all jobs.

The District Court enjoined TA from denying employment to any person solely because of participation in a methadone maintenance program. Recognizing, however, the special responsibility for public safety borne by certain TA employees and the correlation between longevity in a methadone maintenance program and performance capability, the injunction authorized TA to exclude methadone users from specific categories of safety-sensitive positions and also to condition eligibility on satisfactory performance in a methadone program for at least a year. In other words, the court held that TA could lawfully adopt general rules excluding all methadone users from some jobs and a large number of methadone users from all jobs.

Almost a year later the District Court filed a supplemental opinion allowing respondents to recover attorney's fees under 42 U. S. C. § 2000e-5 (k). This determination was premised on the court's additional holding that TA's drug policy violated Title VII. Having already concluded that the blanket *579 exclusion was not rationally related to any business needs of TA, the court reasoned that the statute is violated if the exclusionary policy has a discriminatory effect against blacks and Hispanics. That effect was proved, in the District Court's view, by two statistics: (1) of the employees referred to TA's medical consultant for suspected violation of its drug policy, 81% are black or Hispanic; (2) between 62% and 65% of all methadone-maintained persons in New York City are black or Hispanic. 414 F. Supp. 277, 278-279 (SDNY 1976). The court, however, did not find that TA's policy was motivated by any bias against blacks or Hispanics; indeed, it expressly found that the policy was not adopted with a discriminatory purpose. Id., at 279.

The Court of Appeals affirmed the District Court's constitutional holding. 558 F. 2d 97. While it declined to reach the statutory issue, it also affirmed the award of attorney's fees under the aegis of the recently enacted Civil Rights Attorney's Fees Awards Act of 1976, 42 U. S. C. § 1988, which provides adequate support for an award of legal fees to a party prevailing on a constitutional claim.^[15]

After we granted certiorari, Congress amended the Rehabilitation Act of 1973, 87 Stat. 357, 29 U. S. C. § 701 et seq., to prohibit discrimination against a class of "handicapped individuals" that arguably includes certain former drug abusers and certain current users of methadone. Pub. L. 95-602, 92 Stat. 2984. Respondents argue that the amendment now *580 mandates at least the prospective relief granted by the District Court and the Court of Appeals and that we should therefore dismiss the writ as improvidently granted. We are satisfied, however, that we should decide the constitutional question presented by the petition. Before doing so, we shall discuss (1) the effect of the Rehabilitation Act on this case; and (2) the error in the District Court's analysis of Title VII.

I

Respondents contend that the recent amendment to § 7 (6) of the Rehabilitation Act proscribes TA's enforcement of a general rule denying employment to methadone users.^[16] Even if respondents correctly interpret the amendment, and even if they have a right to enforce that interpretation,^[17] the case *581 is not moot since their claims arose even before the Act itself was passed,^[18] and they have been awarded monetary relief.^[19] Moreover, the language of the statute, even after its amendment, is not free of ambiguity,^[20] and no administrative or judicial opinions specifically considering the impact of the statute on methadone users have been called to our attention. Of greater importance, it is perfectly clear that however we might construe the Rehabilitation Act, the concerns that prompted our grant of certiorari would still merit our attention.^[21] We therefore decline to give the statute its first judicial construction at this stage of the litigation.

*582 II

Although respondents have consistently relied on both statutory and constitutional claims, the lower courts focused primarily on the latter. Thus, when the District Court decided the Title VII issue, it did so only as an afterthought in order to support an award of attorney's fees; the Court of Appeals did not even reach the Title VII issue. We do not condone this departure from settled federal practice. "If there is one doctrine more deeply rooted than any other in the process of constitutional adjudication, it is that we ought not to pass on questions of constitutionality . . . unless such adjudication is unavoidable." Spector Motor Service, Inc. v. McLaughlin, 323 U. S. 101, 105. Before deciding the constitutional question, it was incumbent on those courts to consider whether the statutory grounds might be dispositive.^[22] Whatever *583 their reasons for not doing so,^[23] we shall first dispose of the Title VII issue.^[24]

The District Court's findings do not support its conclusion *584 that TA's regulation prohibiting the use of narcotics, or its interpretation of that regulation to encompass users of methadone, violated Title VII of the Civil Rights Act.

A prima facie violation of the Act may be established by statistical evidence showing that an employment practice has the effect of denying the members of one race equal access to employment opportunities. Even assuming that respondents have crossed this threshold, when the entire record is examined it is clear that the two statistics on which they and the District Court relied do not prove a violation of Title VII.^[25]

First, the District Court noted that 81% of the employees referred to TA's medical director for suspected violation of its narcotics rule were either black or Hispanic. But respondents *585 have only challenged the rule to the extent that it is construed to apply to methadone users, and that statistic tells us nothing about the racial composition of the employees suspected of using methadone.^[26] Nor does the record give us any information about the number of black, Hispanic, or white persons who were dismissed for using methadone.

Second, the District Court noted that about 63% of the persons in New York City receiving methadone maintenance in public programs—i. e., 63% of the 65% of all New York City methadone users who are in such programs^[27]—are black or Hispanic. We do not know, however, how many of these persons ever worked or sought to work for TA. This statistic therefore reveals little if anything about the racial composition of the class of TA job applicants and employees receiving methadone treatment. More particularly, it tells us nothing about the class of otherwise-qualified applicants and employees who have participated in methadone maintenance *586 programs for over a year—the only class improperly excluded by TA's policy under the District Court's analysis. The record demonstrates, in fact, that the figure is virtually irrelevant because a substantial portion of the persons included in it are either unqualified for other reasons—such as the illicit use of drugs and alcohol^[28]—or have received successful assistance in finding jobs with employers other than TA.^[29] Finally, we have absolutely no data on the 14,000 methadone users in the private programs, leaving open the possibility that the percentage of blacks and Hispanics in the class of methadone users is not significantly greater than the percentage of those minorities in the general population of New York City.^[30]

*587 At best, respondents' statistical showing is weak; even if it is capable of establishing a prima facie case of discrimination, it is assuredly rebutted by TA's demonstration that its narcotics rule (and the rule's application to methadone users) is "job related."^[31] The District Court's express finding that the rule was not motivated by racial animus forecloses any claim in rebuttal that it was merely a pretext for intentional discrimination. 414 F. Supp., at 279. We conclude that respondents failed to prove a violation of Title VII. We therefore must reach the constitutional issue.

III

The Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment provides that no State shall "deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws." The Clause announces a fundamental principle: the State must govern impartially. General rules that apply evenhandedly to all persons within the jurisdiction unquestionably comply with this principle. Only when a governmental unit adopts a rule that has a special impact on less than all the persons subject *588 to its jurisdiction does the question whether this principle is violated arise.

In this case, TA's Rule 11 (b) places a meaningful restriction on all of its employees and job applicants; in that sense the rule is one of general applicability and satisfies the equal protection principle without further inquiry. The District Court, however, interpreted the rule as applicable to the limited class of persons who regularly use narcotic drugs, including methadone. As so interpreted, we are necessarily confronted with the question whether the rule reflects an impermissible bias against a special class.

Respondents have never questioned the validity of a special rule for all users of narcotics. Rather, they originally contended that persons receiving methadone should not be covered by that rule; in other words, they should not be included within a class that is otherwise unobjectionable. Their constitutional claim was that methadone users are entitled to be treated like most other employees and applicants rather than like other users of narcotics. But the District Court's findings unequivocally establish that there are relevant differences between persons using methadone regularly and persons who use no narcotics of any kind.^[32]

*589 Respondents no longer question the need, or at least the justification, for special rules for methadone users. Indeed, they vigorously defend the District Court's opinion which expressly held that it would be permissible for TA to have a special rule denying methadone users any employment unless they had been undergoing treatment for at least a year, and another special rule denying even the most senior and reliable methadone users any of the more dangerous jobs in the system.

The constitutional defect in TA's employment policies, according to the District Court, is not that TA has special rules for methadone users, but rather that some members of the class should have been exempted from some requirements of the special rules. Left intact by its holding are rules requiring special supervision of methadone users to detect evidence of drug abuse, and excluding them from high-risk employment. Accepting those rules, the District Court nonetheless concluded that employment in nonsensitive jobs could not be denied to methadone users who had progressed satisfactorily with their treatment for one year, and who, when examined individually, satisfied TA's employment criteria. In short, having recognized that disparate treatment of methadone users simply because they are methadone users is permissible—and having excused TA from an across-the-board requirement of individual consideration of such persons—the District Court construed the Equal Protection Clause as requiring TA to adopt additional and more precise special rules for that special class.

*590 But any special rule short of total exclusion that TA might adopt is likely to be less precise—and will assuredly be more costly^[33]—than the one that it currently enforces. If eligibility is marked at any intermediate point—whether after one year of treatment or later—the classification will inevitably discriminate between employees or applicants equally or *591 almost equally apt to achieve full recovery.^[34] Even the District Court's opinion did not rigidly specify one year as a constitutionally mandated measure of the period of treatment that guarantees full recovery from drug addiction.^[35] The uncertainties associated with the rehabilitation of heroin addicts precluded it from identifying any bright line marking the point at which the risk of regression ends.^[36] By contrast, the "no drugs" policy now enforced by TA is supported by the legitimate inference that as long as a treatment program (or other drug use) continues, a degree of uncertainty persists.^[37] Accordingly, an employment policy that postpones *592 eligibility until the treatment program has been completed, rather than accepting an intermediate point on an uncertain line, is rational. It is neither unprincipled nor invidious in the sense that it implies disrespect for the excluded subclass.

At its simplest, the District Court's conclusion was that TA's rule is broader than necessary to exclude those methadone users who are not actually qualified to work for TA. We may assume not only that this conclusion is correct but also that it is probably unwise for a large employer like TA to rely on a general rule instead of individualized consideration of every job applicant. But these assumptions concern matters of personnel policy that do not implicate the principle safeguarded by the Equal Protection Clause.^[38] As the District Court recognized, the special classification created by TA's rule serves the general objectives of safety and efficiency.^[39] Moreover, the exclusionary line challenged by respondents "is not one which is directed `against' any individual or category of persons, but rather it represents a policy choice . . . made by that branch of Government vested with the power to make such choices." Marshall v. United States, 414 U. S. 417, 428. *593 Because it does not circumscribe a class of persons characterized by some unpopular trait or affiliation, it does not create or reflect any special likelihood of bias on the part of the ruling majority.^[40] Under these circumstances, it is of no constitutional significance that the degree of rationality is not as great with respect to certain ill-defined subparts of the classification as it is with respect to the classification as a whole. Mathews v. Diaz, 426 U. S. 67, 83-84.^[41]

*594 No matter how unwise it may be for TA to refuse employment to individual car cleaners, track repairmen, or busdrivers simply because they are receiving methadone treatment, the Constitution does not authorize a federal court to interfere in that policy decision. The judgment of the Court of Appeals is

Reversed.

MR. JUSTICE POWELL, concurring in part and dissenting in part.

The opinion of the Court addresses, and sustains, the policy of the Transit Authority under its Rule 11 (b) only insofar as it applies to employees and applicants for employment who "are receiving methadone treatment" (emphasis supplied). Ante, at 572-573, n. 3, and ante, this page. I concur in the opinion of the Court holding that there is no violation of the Equal Protection Clause or Title VII when the Authority's policy is applied to employees or applicants who are currently on methadone.

But in my view the question presented by the record and opinions of the courts below is not limited to the effect of the rule on present methadone users. Indeed, I had thought it conceded by all concerned that the Transit Authority's policy of exclusion extended beyond the literal language of Rule 11 (b) to persons currently free of methadone use but who had been on the drug within the previous five years. The District Court was unsure whether all past users were excluded but indicated that the policy of exclusion covered at least persons who had been free of methadone use for less than five years. 399 F. Supp. 1032, 1036 (SDNY 1975).^[1] The Court of *595 Appeals for the Second Circuit was unequivocal. It understood that the rule constituted a "blanket exclusion from employment of all persons participating in or having successfully concluded methadone maintenance programs." 558 F. 2d 97, 99 (1977).

Petitioners' brief in this Court states, in effect, that the Authority will consider only applicants for employment who have been free of a drug problem for "at least five years":

"[T]he Authority will give individual consideration to people with a past history of drug addiction including those who have completed either a drug free or a methadone maintenance program, and who have been completely drug free and have had a stable history for at least five years." Brief for Petitioners 5.

There was a similar recognition of the Authority's policy in the petition for a writ of certiorari.^[2]

Despite this unanimity among the parties and courts below as to the question presented, the Court today simply chooses to limit its decision to the policy with respect to employees and applicants currently receiving methadone treatment. The explanation given is that "neither the findings of fact, nor the record evidence, squarely presents any issue with respect to former users that must be resolved in order to dispose of this litigation." Ante, at 572-573, n. 3. But the only support the Court cites for this statement is a lack of proof as to the policy's actual application. In light of the express admission *596 of the Transit Authority to the District Court that the policy extended to at least some former users,^[3] evidence of the past application of the policy was irrelevant to the fashioning of prospective relief.^[4]

I conclude that the Court has decided only a portion of the case presented, and has failed to address what it recognizes as the more difficult issue. Ante, at 572-573, n. 3, 591-592, and n. 37. We owe it to the parties to resolve all issues properly presented, rather than to afford no guidance whatever as to whether former drug and methadone users may be excluded from employment by the Authority. I agree with the courts below that there is no rational basis for an absolute bar against the employment of persons who have completed successfully a methadone maintenance program and who otherwise *597 are qualified for employment. See Vance v. Bradley, ante, at 111; Massachusetts Bd. of Retirement v. Murgia, 427 U. S. 307, 314 (1976); San Antonio Independent School Dist. v. Rodriguez, 411 U. S. 1, 40 (1973). I therefore would affirm the judgment below with respect to the class of persons who are former methadone users.

MR. JUSTICE BRENNAN, dissenting.

I would affirm for the reasons stated in Part I of MR. JUSTICE WHITE'S dissenting opinion.

MR. JUSTICE WHITE, with whom MR. JUSTICE MARSHALL joins, dissenting.

Although the Court purports to apply settled principles to unique facts, the result reached does not square with either Title VII or the Equal Protection Clause. Accordingly, but respectfully, I dissent.

I

As an initial matter, the Court is unwise in failing to remand the statutory claims to the Court of Appeals. The District Court decided the Title VII issue only because it provided a basis for allowing attorney's fees. 414 F. Supp. 277, 278 (SDNY 1976). The Court of Appeals did not deal with Title VII, relying instead on the intervening passage of the Civil Rights Attorney's Fees Awards Act of 1976,^[1] which authorized the award of fees for success on the equal protection claim today held infirm by the Court. 558 F. 2d 97, 99-100 (CA2 1977). In such circumstances, on finding that we disagree with the judgment of the Court of Appeals as to the constitutional question, we would usually remand the unexplored alternative basis for relief.^[2]E. g., Vermont Yankee *598 Nuclear Power Corp. v. NRDC, 435 U. S. 519, 549 (1978). And see Arlington Heights v. Metropolitan Housing Dev. Corp., 429 U. S. 252, 271 (1977), which involved nearly identical circumstances. That course would obviate the need for us to deal with what the Court considers to be a factual issue or at least would provide assistance in analyzing the issue.

Because the Court has decided the question, however, I must express my reservations about the merits of that decision. In a disparate-impact hiring case such as this, the plaintiff must show that the challenged practice excludes members of a protected group in numbers disproportionate to their incidence in the pool of potential employees.^[3] Respondents made out a sufficient, though not strong, prima facie case by proving that about 63% of those using methadone in the New York City area are black or Hispanic and that only about 20% of the relevant population as a whole belongs to one of those groups.^[4] I think it fair to conclude, as the District Court must *599 have, that blacks and Hispanics suffer three times as much from the operation of the challenged rule excluding methadone users as one would expect from a neutral practice. Thus, excluding those who are or have been in methadone programs "operate[s] to render ineligible a markedly disproportionate number" of blacks and Hispanics. Griggs v. Duke Power Co., 401 U. S. 424, 429 (1971).

In response to this, the Court says that the 63% statistic was not limited to those who worked for or sought to work for petitioners and to those who have been successfully maintained on methadone, and that it does not include those in private clinics. Ante, at 584-586. I suggest, in the first place, that these attacks on facially valid statistics should have been made in the District Court and the Court of Appeals, see Dothard v. Rawlinson, 433 U. S. 321, 331 (1977); the first contention was not even made in this Court. It also seems to me that petitioners have little to complain about insofar as the makeup of the applicant pool is concerned since they refused on grounds of irrelevancy to allow discovery of the racial background of the applicants denied employment pursuant to the methadone rule.

In any event, I cannot agree with the Court's assertions that this evidence "reveals little if anything," "tells us nothing," and is "virtually irrelevant." Ante, at 585-586.^[5] There is not a *600 shadow of doubt that methadone users do apply for employment with petitioners, and because 63% of all methadone users are black or Hispanic, there is every reason to conclude that a majority of methadone users who apply are also from these minority groups. Almost 5% of all applicants are rejected due to the rule, and undoubtedly many black and Hispanic methadone users are among those rejected. Why would proportionally fewer of them than whites secure work with petitioners absent the challenged practice? The Court gives no reason whatsoever for rejecting this sensible inference, and where the inference depends so much on local knowledge, I would accept the judgment of the District Court rather than purport to make an independent judgment from the banks of the Potomac. At the very least, as I have said, I would seek the views of the Court of Appeals.

The Court complains that even if minority groups make up 63% of methadone-user applicants this statistic is an insufficient indicator of the composition of the group found by the District Court to have been wrongly excluded—that is, those who have been successfully maintained for a year or more. I cannot, however, presume with the Court that blacks or Hispanics will be less likely than whites to succeed on methadone. I would have thought the presumption, until rebutted, would be one of an equal chance of success, and there has been no rebuttal.

Finally, as to the racial composition of the patients at private clinics, I note first that the District Court found that "[b]etween 62% and 65% of methadone maintained persons in New York City are black and Hispanic . . . ." 414 F. Supp., at 279. The finding was for the total population, not just for public clinics. Even assuming that the Court wishes to overturn this finding of fact as clearly erroneous, I see no support for doing so. The evidence from the Methadone Information Center at Rockefeller University indicated that 61% of all patients in the metropolitan area were black or Puerto Rican (with 5.85% undefined). This was based on a *601 1,400-patient sample, which, according to the Center, "was drawn on a random basis and very accurately reflects the total population for Metropolitan New York City" (emphasis supplied). There is no reason to believe that this study, which in its reporting of the total number of patients of all races included both public and private clinics, did not include private programs in its racial-composition figures.^[6] And even if everyone in the private clinics were white, a highly unlikely assumption at best,^[7] the challenged rule would still automatically exclude a substantially greater number of blacks and Hispanics than would a practice with a racially neutral effect.

With all due respect, I would accept the statistics as making *602 a prima facie case of disparate impact. Obviously, the case could have been stronger, but this Court is unjustified in displacing the District Court's acceptance of uncontradicted, relevant evidence. Perhaps sensing that, the Court goes on to say that if such a prima facie showing was made it was rebutted by the fact that the rule is "job related."

Petitioners had the burden of showing job relatedness. They did not show that the rule results in a higher quality labor force, that such a labor force is necessary, or that the cost of making individual decisions about those on methadone was prohibitive. Indeed, as shown in the equal protection discussion infra, petitioners have not come close to showing that the present rule is "demonstrably a reasonable measure of job performance." Griggs, 401 U. S., at 436. No one could reasonably argue that petitioners have made the kind of showing demanded by Griggs or Albemarle Paper Co. v. Moody, 422 U. S. 405 (1975). By petitioners' own stipulation, see n. 14, infra, this employment barrier was adopted "without meaningful study of [its] relationship to job-performance ability." Griggs, supra, at 431. As we stated in Washington v. Davis, 426 U. S. 229, 247 (1976), Title VII "involves a more probing judicial review of, and less deference to, the seemingly reasonable acts of administrators and executives than is appropriate under the Constitution . . . ." Therefore, unlike the majority, ante, at 587 n. 31, I think it insufficient that the rule as a whole has some relationship to employment so long as a readily identifiable and severable part of it does not.

II

I also disagree with the Court's disposition of the equal protection claim in light of the facts established below. The District Court found that the evidence conclusively established that petitioners exclude from employment all persons who are successfully on methadone maintenance—that is, those who after one year are "free of the use of heroin, other illicit *603 drugs, and problem drinking," 399 F. Supp. 1032, 1047 (SDNY 1975)—and those who have graduated from methadone programs and remain drug free for less than five years;^[8] that past *604 or present successful methadone maintenance is not a meaningful predictor of poor performance or conduct in most job categories; that petitioners could use their normal employee-screening mechanisms to separate the successfully maintained users from the unsuccessful; and that petitioners do exactly that for other groups that common sense indicates might also be suspect employees.^[9] Petitioners did not challenge these factual conclusions in the Court of Appeals, but that court nonetheless reviewed the evidence and found that it overwhelmingly supported the District Court's findings. 558 F. 2d, at 99. It bears repeating, then, that both the District Court and the Court of Appeals found that those who have been maintained on methadone for at least a year and who are free from the use of illicit drugs and alcohol can easily be identified through normal personnel procedures and, for a great many jobs, are as employable as and present no more risk than applicants from the general population.

Though petitioners' argument here is primarily an attack upon the factfinding below, the Court does not directly accept that thesis. Instead, it concludes that the District Court and the Court of Appeals both misapplied the Equal Protection *605 Clause. On the facts as found, however, one can reach the Court's result only if that Clause imposes no real constraint at all in this situation.

The question before us is the rationality of placing successfully maintained or recently cured persons in the same category as those just attempting to escape heroin addiction or who have failed to escape it, rather than in with the general population.^[10] The asserted justification for the challenged classification is the objective of a capable and reliable work force, and thus the characteristic in question is employability. "Employability," in this regard, does not mean that any particular applicant, much less every member of a given group of applicants, will turn out to be a model worker. Nor does it mean that no such applicant will ever become or be discovered to be a malingerer, thief, alcoholic, or even heroin addict. All employers take such risks. Employability, as the District Court used it in reference to successfully maintained methadone users, means only that the employer is no more likely to find a member of that group to be an unsatisfactory employee than he would an employee chosen from the general population.

Petitioners had every opportunity, but presented nothing to negative the employability of successfully maintained methadone users as distinguished from those who were unsuccessful. Instead, petitioners, like the Court, dwell on the methadone failures—those who quit the programs or who remain but turn to illicit drug use. The Court, for instance, makes much of the drug use of many of those in methadone programs, including those who have been in such programs for more than one year. Ante, at 576, and n. 10. But this has little force *606 since those persons are not "successful," can be and have been identified as such, see ante, at 574-575,^[11] and, despite the Court's efforts to put them there, see ante, at 590 n. 33, are not within the protection of the District Court's injunction. That 20% to 30% are unsuccessful after one year in a methadone program tells us nothing about the employability of the successful group, and it is the latter category of applicants that the District Court and the Court of Appeals held to be unconstitutionally burdened by the blanket rule disqualifying them from employment.

The District Court and the Court of Appeals were therefore fully justified in finding that petitioners could not reasonably have concluded that the protected group is less employable than the general population and that excluding it "has no rational relation to the demands of the jobs to be performed."^[12] 399 F. Supp., at 1057. In fact, the Court assumes that petitioners' policy is unnecessarily broad in excluding the successfully maintained and the recently cured, ante, at 592, and that a member of that group can be selected with adequate precision. Ante, at 574-575. Despite this, the validity of the exclusion is upheld on the rational basis of the uninvolved portion of the rule, that is, that the rule excludes many who are less employable. But petitioners must justify the distinction between groups, not just the policy to which they have attached the classification. The purpose of the rule as a whole is *607 relevant only if the classification within the rule serves the purpose, but the majority's assumption admits that is not so.

Justification of the blanket exclusion is not furthered by the statement that "any special rule short of total exclusion. . . is likely to be less precise" than the current rule. Ante, at 590. If the rule were narrowed as the District Court ordered, it would operate more precisely in at least one respect, for many employable persons would no longer be excluded. Nor does the current rule provide a "bright line," for there is nothing magic about the point five years after treatment has ended. There is a risk of "regression" among those who have never used methadone, and the Court cannot overcome the District Court's finding that a readily ascertainable point exists at which the risk has so decreased that the maintained or recently cured person is generally as employable as anyone else.^[13]

Of course, the District Court's order permitting total exclusion of all methadone users maintained for less than one year, whether successfully or not, would still exclude some employables and would to this extent be overinclusive. "Overinclusiveness" as to the primary objective of employability is accepted for less successful methadone users because it fulfills a secondary purpose and thus is not "overinclusive" at all. See Vance v. Bradley, ante, at 109. Although many of those who hav