Expiration of ancient court order right call

Forty-three years is a long time for a consent decree to endure.

But the 1980 court order pressed by the then-Marin chapter of the National Organization for Women that established a quota requiring the county to hire more women has stood for decades. The chapter had filed a lawsuit in 1976 arguing that the county's employment practices discriminated against women, which they charged was a violation of the Civil Rights Act of 1964.

The county did not confirm the allegation, neither did the court. But the county entered into a court-authorized agreement that it would establish quotas aimed at gender equity in its ranks.

The decree called on the county to promote the hiring of women and hire an “affirmative action officer” to oversee “an intensive affirmative action recruitment program.”

Finally last month, a federal court judge lifted the decree. U.S. District Judge Richard Seeborg granted the county's motion.

“The county has satisfied and in some areas exceeded the goals of the consent decree, and further enforcement of the decree would be inequitable,” he wrote.

For more than a decade, the county has met its quota.

Since 2012, the county's payroll statistics show that 56.9% of its workforce and 51% of its managers are females. In 2021, the county reported that women comprised 56.3% of its workforce and 54.4% of its managers.

Today, that includes the Board of Supervisors, of which three of its five members are women.

But it's taken a while, a lot longer than it should have.

Compliance wasn't going to happen overnight, but 43 years is a long time.

The decree even outlasted NOW's Marin chapter, the plaintiff in the lawsuit. The local group isn't around anymore.

Getting the decree lifted was apparently hung up on getting the blessing of the Marin Women's Commission, an 11-member commission that has monitored the county's progress in living up to the decree.

The commission's chair, Barbara Anderson, submitted a declaration endorsing the end of the decree. But even just last year, the commission reported that it had not been unable to reach a consensus among its members to recommend lifting the decree.

While the county's overall workforce statistics are persuasive, a deeper dive into those numbers shows that some areas, such as skilled-craft and service and maintenance workers are still predominantly male.

The ultimate goal of the decree was to make sure there are equal opportunities for both men and women, in hiring and promotion.

It was embarrassing that the county, the largest Marin based employer — with more than 2,400 full-time positions — was under a longstanding court order when it should be a leading model for equal opportunity hiring and promotion.

Getting the decree lifted has been on the county's “to do” list for many years. In the end, the hurdles had more to do with procedure than numbers and quotas.

But former supervisor Judy Arnold, herself a former county staffer and hardly a shrinking violet when it comes to promoting equal rights and opportunities for women, summed it up best: “It was time.”