rewrote the panel recommendation to favor the minority candidate.  The Executive Director of
the Parks Commission then approved the hiring of that candidate. Crawford sued.

The Court of Special Appeals carefully analyzed the decisions of the Supreme Court to
that point on affirmative action: Bakke.256 Weber.257 and Fullilove.258

Despite the Supreme Court's "ambivalent posture" in these three cases, we believe
it is possible to extrapolate certain general precepts which apply to all affirmative
action plans. Bakke teaches us, in part, that the Constitution forbids "preferring
members of any one group for no reason other than race or ethnic origin. ... In
that case, it was also observed that:

Government may take race into account when it acts not to demean
or insult any racial group, but to remedy disadvantages cast on
minorities by past racial prejudice, at least when appropriate
findings have been made by judicial, legislative or administrative
bodies with competence to act in this area.

Weber and Fullilove suggest that affirmative action plans which produce
discrimination against non-minorities solely on the basis of race, sex or national
origin are permissible where strict guidelines and safeguards are established and
obeyed. . ..

The Weber Court, speaking through Justice Brennan, held that Title VII did not
forbid private employees and unions from "voluntarily agreeing upon bona fide
affirmative action plans that accord racial preference in the manner and for the
purpose provided" in the plan that was before the Court. . . . This particular plan
did not run afoul of Title VII because of the temporary duration of the plan, the
remedial purpose of breaking down the traditional patterns of racial segregation in
job classifications, the voluntary nature of the plan, and the fact that the plan did
not unnecessarily trammel the interests of white workers because the plan did not
"create an absolute bar to the advancement of white employees [because] half of
those trained in the program will be white."

While the Weber Court did not expressly state that strict adherence to the
affirmative action plan was required, it follows from the Court's reasoning that an
affirmative action plan which is not complied with is, in fact, no plan at all. . . .
employment practices which depart from the plan's guidelines lose the
sanctification provided by a valid affirmative action program.259

The Court of Special Appeals concluded that the issue in Crawford was "whether
Crawford's rights were violated due to the discrimination which resulted from appellants' failure
to adhere correctly to the EEOC conciliation agreement - that is, failure to follow the
Commission's affirmative action plan through the use of the concurrence procedure."260 The
Court found that the Commission had violated Crawford's constitutional rights. "Wells'
understanding of the Executive Director's directive that the next position must go to a minority
does not justify her failure to follow the Commission's procedures by failing to request a

175