of applying the Fifth and the Fourteenth Amendments in cases such as this.

A rule that a statute designed to serve neutral ends is nevertheless invalid, absent compelling justification, if in practice it benefits or burdens one race more than another would be far reaching and would raise serious questions about, and perhaps invalidate, a whole range of tax, welfare, public service, regulatory, and licensing statutes that may be more burdensome to the poor and to the average black than to the more affluent white."

Given that rule, such consequences would perhaps be likely to follow. However, in our view, extension of the rule beyond those areas where it is already applicable by reason of statute, such as in the field of public employment, should await legislative prescription.

As we have indicated, it was error to direct summary judgment for respondents based on the Fifth Amendment.

III

We also hold that the Court of Appeals should have affirmed the judgment of the District Court granting the motions for summary judgment filed by petitioners and the federal parties. Respondents were entitled to relief on neither constitutional nor statutory grounds.

14 Goodman, De Facto School Segregation: A Constitutional and Empirical Analysis, 60 Calif. L. Rev. 275, 300 (1972), suggests that disproportionate-impact analysis might invalidate "tests and qualifications for voting, draft deferment, public employment, jury service, and other government-conferred benefits and opportunities. [s]ales taxes, bail schedules, utility rates, bridge tolls, license fees, and other state-imposed charges." It has also been argued that minimum wage and usury laws as well as professional licensing requirements would require major modifications in light of the unequal-impact rule. Silverman, Equal Protection, Economic Legislation, and Racial Discrimination, 25 Vand. L. Rev. 1183 (1972). See also Demsetz, Minorities in the Market Place, 43 N. C. L. Rev. 271 (1965).

The submission of the defendants in the District Court was that Test 21 complied with all applicable statutory as well as constitutional requirements; and they appear not to have disputed that under the statutes and regulations governing their conduct standards similar to those obtaining under Title VII had to be satisfied.15 The District Court also assumed that Title VII standards were to control the case, identified the determinative issue as whether Test 21 was sufficiently job related and proceeded to uphold use of the test because it was "directly related to a determination of whether the applicant possesses sufficient skills requisite to the demands of the curriculum a recruit must master at the police academy." 348 F. Supp., at 17. The Court of Appeals reversed because the relationship between Test 21 and training school success, if demonstrated at all, did not satisfy what it deemed to be the crucial requirement

15 In their memorandum supporting their motion for summary judgment, the federal parties argued:

"In Griggs, supra, the Supreme Court set a job-relationship standard for the private sector employers which has been a standard for federal employment since the passage of the Civil Service Act in 1883. In that act Congress has mandated that the federal government must use ‘. . . examinations for testing applicants for appointment. . . which . . . as far as possible relate to matters that fairly test the relative capacity and fitness of the applicants for the appointments sought.' 5 U. S. C. § 3304 (a) (1). Defendants contend that they have been following the job-related standards of Griggs, supra, for the past eighty-eight years by virtue of the enactment of the Civil Service Act which guaranteed open and fair competition for jobs."

They went on to argue that the Griggs standard had been satisfied. In granting the motions for summary judgment filed by petitioners and the federal parties, the District Court necessarily decided adversely to respondents the statutory issues expressly or tacitly tendered by the parties.

of a direct relationship between performance on Test 21 and performance on the policeman's job.

We agree with petitioners and the federal parties that this was error. The advisability of the police recruit training course informing the recruit about his upcoming job, acquainting him with its demands, and attempting to impart a modicum of required skills seems conceded. It is also apparent to us, as it was to the District Judge, that some minimum verbal and communicative skill would be very useful, if not essential, to satisfactory progress in the training regimen. Based on the evidence before him, the District Judge concluded that Test 21 was directly related to the requirements of the police training program and that a positive relationship between the test and training-course performance was sufficient to validate the former, wholly aside from its possible relationship to actual performance as a police officer. This conclusion of the District Judge that training-program validation may itself be sufficient is supported by regulations of the Civil Service Commission, by the opinion evidence placed before the District Judge, and by the current views of the Civil Service Commissioners who were parties to the case.16 Nor is the

16 See n. 17, infra. Current instructions of the Civil Service Commission on "Examining, Testing, Standards, and Employment Practices" provide in pertinent part:

"S2-2-Use of applicant appraisal procedures

"a. Policy. The Commission's staff develops and uses applicant appraisal procedures to assess the knowledges, skills, and abilities of persons for jobs and not persons in the abstract.

"(1) Appraisal procedures are designed to reflect real, reasonable, and necessary qualifications for effective job behavior.

"(2) An appraisal procedure must, among other requirements, have a demonstrable and rational relationship to important jobrelated performance objectives identified by management, such as: "(a) Effective job performance;

conclusion foreclosed by either Griggs or Albemarle Paper Co. v. Moody, 422 U. S. 405 (1975); and it seems to us the much more sensible construction of the job-relatedness requirement.

The District Court's accompanying conclusion that Test 21 was in fact directly related to the requirements of the police training program was supported by a validation study, as well as by other evidence of record;

"(b) Capability;

"(c) Success in training;

"(d) Reduced turnover; or

"(e) Job satisfaction." 37 Fed. Reg. 21557 (1972).

17

See also Equal Employment Opportunity Commission Guidelines on Employee Selection Procedures, 29 CFR § 1607.5 (b) (3) (1975), discussed in Albemarle Paper Co. v. Moody, 422 U. S., at 430-435.

17 The record includes a validation study of Test 21's relationship to performance in the recruit training program. The study was made by D. L. Futransky of the Standards Division, Bureau of Policies and Standards, United States Civil Service Commission. App. 99-109. Findings of the study included data "support [ing] the conclusion that T[est] 21 is effective in selecting trainees who can learn the material that is taught at the Recruit School." Id., at 103. Opinion evidence, submitted by qualified experts examining the Futransky study and/or conducting their own research, affirmed the correlation between scores on Test 21 and success in the training program. E. g., Affidavit of Dr. Donald J. Schwartz (personnel research psychologist, United States Civil Service Commission), App. 178, 183 ("It is my opinion... that Test 21 has a significant positive correlation with success in the MPD Recruit School for both Blacks and whites and is therefore shown to be job related . . ."); affidavit of Diane E. Wilson (personnel research psychologist, United States Civil Service Commission), App. 185, 186 ("It is my opinion that there is a direct and rational relationship between the content and difficulty of Test 21 and successful completion of recruit school training").

The Court of Appeals was "willing to assume for purposes of this appeal that appellees have shown that Test 21 is predictive of fur

STEVENS, J., concurring

426 U.S.

and we are not convinced that this conclusion was

erroneous.

The federal parties, whose views have somewhat changed since the decision of the Court of Appeals and who still insist that training-program validation is sufficient, now urge a remand to the District Court for the purpose of further inquiry into whether the training-program test scores, which were found to correlate with Test 21 scores, are themselves an appropriate measure of the trainee's mastership of the material taught in the course and whether the training program itself is sufficiently related to actual performance of the police officer's task. We think a remand is inappropriate. The District Court's judgment was warranted by the record before it, and we perceive no good reason to reopen it, particularly since we were informed at oral argument that although Test 21 is still being administered, the training program itself has undergone substantial modification in the course of this litigation. If there are now deficiencies in the recruiting practices under prevailing Title VII standards, those deficiencies are to be directly addressed in accordance with appropriate procedures mandated under that Title.

The judgment of the Court of Appeals accordingly is reversed.

So ordered.

MR. JUSTICE STEWART joins Parts I and II of the Court's opinion.

MR. JUSTICE STEVENS, concurring.

While I agree with the Court's disposition of this case, I add these comments on the constitutional issue dis

ther progress in Recruit School." 168 U. S. App. D. C., at 48, 512 F.2d, at 962.