Supreme Court to hear "class of one" equal protection case
The U.S. Supreme Court has granted review in Engquist v. Oregon Dept. of Agriculture, No. 07-474, an appeal of a ruling, below, by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit that rejected a “class of one” equal protection claim by a former public employee. The employee argued that her employer intentionally treated her differently than other similarly situated employees, without any rational basis. The Equal Protection Clause protects against discrimination on the basis of a “suspect classification” such as race, but it also can protect an individual, as a “class of one,” who does not allege such discrimination but who argues that he or she was treated differently from similarly situated individuals and that the public entity lacked any rational basis for the different treatment. For strategic and financial reasons, plaintiffs’ attorneys sometimes add constitutional claims to suits in which their clients may have statutory remedies. Two examples of school law cases involving “class of one” claims, neither of them by employees, also are provided below.
In a case of first impression (i.e., a case that raises a legal issue not previously considered by that court), the Ninth Circuit (AK, AZ, CA, HI, ID, MT, NV, OR, WA, GU, MP) rejected the employee’s theory, even though that court had applied the class of one theory to regulatory land use cases, and even though other U.S. appeals courts have applied it to public employment decisions. The court found that rights of public employees are not as broad as the rights of ordinary citizens, the need for review under equal protection analysis is “thin” due to the other legal protections enjoyed by public employees, and a judicially imposed constitutional proscription of arbitrary public employer actions would upset long-standing personnel practices.
Engquist v. Oregon Dept. of Agriculture, 478 F.3d 985 (9th Cir. 2007)
NSBA School Law pages on RJB Properties v. Bd. of Educ. of the City of Chicago
NSBA School Law pages on Racine Charter One, Inc. v. Racine Unified Sch. Dist.