This 1972 photo shows a Navajo worker at a Peabody Coal mine in Arizona. Photo from National Archives and Records Administration

Tribal hiring preferences do not violate federal law, the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals ruled today.

The Equal Opportunity Employment Commission challenged lease provisions that required Peabody Energy to adopt a hiring preference for members of the Navajo Nation. The agency claimed the company was discriminating against members of other tribes.

The 9th Circuit, however, said tribal preferences are permissible under the Civil Rights Act of 1964 because they are based on a political, not racial, classification. The decision cited Morton v. Mancari, a U.S. Supreme Court case from 1974 that upheld the legality of Indian preference laws.

"We recognize that Mancari addressed a political classification providing a general Indian hiring preference rather than a tribe-specific preference," the 9th Circuit wrote in the unanimous decision. "But Mancari’s logic applies with equal force where a classification addresses differential treatment between or among particular tribes or groups of Indians."

The 9th Circuit's ruling is a major blow to the EEOC. The agency has long argued that tribal hiring preferences are not the same as Indian preference.

"There is longstanding policy at the commission that interprets Indian preference to mean Indian preference, that you can grant preference to any other Indian, regardless of the tribe," EEOC general counsel David Lopez told the National Congress of American Indians in March 2013 while the case was on appeal.

It also settles a significant difference of opinion within the executive branch. The Interior Department argued that tribal preferences are legal.

"The [Interior] Secretary maintains that tribal hiring preferences serve to promote tribal self-governance in accordance with congressionally mandated federal Indian policy," the 9th Circuit noted.

Turtle Talk has posted briefs from the case, EEOC v. Peabody Western Coal. Oral arguments from the 9th Circuit hearing in May can be found on the Indianz.Com SoundCloud.

9th Circuit Decision:
EEOC v. Peabody (September 26, 2014)

Related Stories:
EEOC confirms difference between tribal and Indian preference (03/06)
Supreme Court declines Navajo employment preference case (10/3)