-4-
While the lawsuit was pending in superior court, the U.S.
Supreme Court decided in Richmond v. J.A. Croson Co., 488 U.S.
469 (1989), that a State government must have strong evidence of
past discrimination before it can employ racial or gender
classifications. On the basis of this decision, the board
reexamined the department’s supplemental certification program
and concluded that it was improper. The board suspended the
department’s use of that program in December 1989. Shortly
thereafter, the superior court dismissed the lawsuit as moot in
that the department was essentially then in compliance with the
plaintiffs’ request in the lawsuit that it abandon its
supplemental certification program. The superior court declined
in connection with the dismissal to grant the plaintiffs’ request
to discharge the individuals employed through the supplemental
certification program.
The plaintiffs appealed the dismissal of the lawsuit to the
California Court of Appeal for the Third District (court of
appeal). The court of appeal reversed the dismissal and remanded
the case to the superior court with instructions to declare that
the plaintiffs’ rights under the California Constitution and
California Government Code were violated by the use of
supplemental certification, to enjoin the defendants from using
supplemental certification, and to “fashion an equitable remedy
to redress the violation of plaintiffs’ constitutional and
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