March 27, 2008

In Arendale v. City of Memphis, No. 07-5230 (Mar. 20, 2008), the Sixth Circuit clarified the circumstances under which an employee may bring a civil rights lawsuit against a municipality for race discrimination.

Matthew Arendale, a Memphis police officer, alleged that he was the victim of reverse discrimination on the job. He claimed that his African American superior officer assigned him undesirable detachments and illegally suspended him from work after an altercation between the two in April 2004. Arendale eventually filed a civil rights suit against the City of Memphis. The City successfully moved for summary judgment.

The Sixth Circuit quickly disposed of Arendale’s discrimination claims against the city for violations of 42 U.S.C. § 1983. The court noted that a municipality may not be sued under Section 1983 for discrimination inflicted solely by its employees or agents. Because Arendale failed to identify any municipal policy or custom that facilitated discrimination, his Section 1983 claim failed as a matter of law.

Arendale attempted to avoid this issue by alleging that the city violated 42 U.S.C. § 1981, which prohibits racial discrimination in the making and enforcement of contracts. Prior Supreme Court cases held that Section 1981 did not create a private right of action against a municipality, but Arendale argued that the Civil Rights Act of 1991 overturned these decisions. The Sixth Circuit disagreed, concluding that Congress did not intend for the 1991 Act to create a private Section 1981 right of action against a municipality. Accordingly, the court affirmed the trial court’s grant of summary judgment.

Notably, the Sixth Circuit’s holding is in direct conflict with the Ninth Circuit’s decision in Federation of African American Contractors v. City of Oakland, 96 F.3d 1204, 1213 (1996). The US Supreme Court will undoubtedly be asked to resolve this conflict in coming years.