Luévano Consent Decree determined in 1981 written civil service test unfair to Black and Hispanic applicants

“Today, the Justice Department removed that barrier and reopened federal employment opportunities based on merit—not race.” – U.S. Assistant Attorney General Harmeet K. Dhillon on Aug. 1, 2025.

“The Decree has had its usefulness and a tremendous effect on the country. Millions of minorities and women hold jobs because of that class action lawsuit. It wasn’t DEI. It didn’t just benefit minorities and women. The Outstanding Scholar Program…was actually used 70% by whites.” – Angel Luévano

By Allen D. Payton

On Friday, August 1, 2025, Assistant Attorney General Harmeet K. Dhillon announced that the Civil Rights Division of the U.S. Department of Justice (USDOJ) had ended a 44-year-old decree mandating race-based government hiring. It’s named for Antioch resident Angel G. Luévano, who, with a group of attorneys in 1979, brought a class action lawsuit on behalf of African Americans and Hispanics over the Professional and Administrative Career Examination (PACE). They claimed disparate impact against them based on their test results violated Title VII’s equal employment opportunity provision of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. Dhillon claimed the decree “imposed draconian test review and implementation procedures” on the Office of Personnel Management (OPM).

The 1979 Luévano v. Campbell lawsuit, against the then and first Director of the Officer of Personnel Management, Alan Campbell, resulted in a settlement during the final days of President Jimmy Carter’s Administration, just prior to President Ronald Reagan’s inauguration, eliminating use of the PACE test. According to court documents filed in March 2025 by the USDOJ, “on January 9, 1981, after two years of litigation, Plaintiffs and OPM jointly moved for ‘an order granting preliminary approval to a Consent Decree.’ Luevano, 93 F.R.D. at 72. The parties signed the Decree eleven days prior to the change in administration, and the Court accepted the Decree on February 26, 1981.”

In addition, according to the Civil Rights Litigation Clearing House Case Summary, in the Decree the “federal government in part agreed to…establish two special hiring programs, Outstanding Scholar and Bilingual/Bicultural.”

The lawsuit title was later changed to Luevano v. Ezell, named for Charles Ezell, the current Acting OPM Director. This year’s court filing reads, “Federal law requires many federal jobs be filled based on merit alone. Beginning in 1974, OPM employed a test to do just that. The Professional and Administrative Career Examination (‘PACE’) was a challenging, written examination that measured cognitive and other skills. It quickly proved an effective way of predicting future job performance, thereby increasing the efficiency and capability of the federal workforce. But it did not last long.”

In a Aug. 1 post on Dhillon’s official X (formerly Twitter) account she wrote, “Another federal government DEI program bites the dust! Today, the @CivilRights Division ended a 44-year-old decree that bound the federal government to use DEI in its hiring practices” and shared the news release from the USDOJ announcing the end to the decree:

“Today, the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division ended a court-imposed decree initiated by the Carter administration, which limited the hiring practices of the federal government based on flawed and outdated theories of diversity, equity, and inclusion.

In Luevano v. Ezell, the Court dismissed a consent decree based on a lawsuit initially brought by interest groups representing federal employees in 1979. The decree entered in 1981 imposed draconian test review and implementation procedures on the Office of Personnel Management—and consequently all other federal agencies—requiring them to receive permission prior to using any tests for potential federal employees, in an attempt to require equal testing outcomes among all races of test-takers.

“For over four decades, this decree has hampered the federal government from hiring the top talent of our nation,” said Dhillon. “Today, the Justice Department removed that barrier and reopened federal employment opportunities based on merit—not race.”

“It’s simple, competence and merit are the standards by which we should all be judged; nothing more and nothing less,” said U.S. Attorney Jeanine Pirro for the District of Columbia. “It’s about time people are judged, not by their identity, but instead ‘by the content of their character.’”

Luévano Responds

In response to the decree’s dismissal, Luévano said, “I agreed to vacate the Decree through the Mexican American Legal Defense and Education Fund (MALDEF) because I don’t want to make bad law. There are two interveners on the other side that wanted to broaden the attack.”

Asked when he agreed to it, he said, “Last week. Attorneys for both sides met with the judge last Thursday to resolve the matter.”

“The Decree has had its usefulness and a tremendous effect on the country,” Luévano continued. “Millions of minorities and women hold jobs because of that class action lawsuit. The Decree affected 118 job classifications in federal hiring nationwide.”

“I’m extremely proud of the effect that it has had on federal hires and getting minorities and women into federal jobs,” he stated. “It affected my decision to join, it was the key for me to join federal civil rights compliance in the Labor Department.”

Asked why he was the lead plaintiff he said, “I took the PACE exam because I wanted to get into a federal job. I achieved an 80 on the test – a passing grade, even though it’s been reported I flunked the exam. That’s not true. The result was I did not get referred to federal openings. They were only referring people with a 100 on their tests to jobs.”

“I learned about the case through the Legal Aid Society which had brought many cases in the construction industry. Our unit was successful in getting the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) to be effective. I went to them and said, ‘that happened to me’ in the Office of Personnel Management. That’s the lead HR department in the federal government. They’re the gatekeepers to federal employment.”

“I asked them, is there something we can do about this. They said, ‘funny you should ask. We are looking for someone to do something about this’ and we began working on the lawsuit,” he shared.

“One of the things I was able to achieve was alternatives to merit selection in federal employment, the Outstanding Scholar and Bilingual/Bicultural programs that each agency implemented,” Luévano stated.

“I gave up back pay and also the class, to get them to agree to the decree,” he continued. “When you win a case, you usually get a settlement. But I was the one who gave up back pay for myself and for the class to get those two remedies. That was really big. That is huge. Who gets alternatives to merit-based hiring at the national level? They used it to bring in minorities and women.”

“It wasn’t DEI. It didn’t just benefit minorities and women. The Outstanding Scholar Program as an alternative to discriminatory merit-based hiring was actually used 70% by whites,” he stated. “But that’s OK. I wanted to crack the discriminatory employment barriers to federal hiring.”

“When I was in D.C. I met with the second in command at the OPM, while we were in Puerto Rico. He said, ‘Angel, you know it’s not what you know. It’s who you know. I said to him, ‘I know you!’ He replied, ‘But I don’t have any power.’ I’ve learned that every where I’ve gone. As you go up the ladder it gets narrower and narrower and harder and harder.”

“We used the impact theory to prove there was discrimination. There are only two theories, that one and disparate treatment,” Luevano explained.

“I negotiated through my lawyers,” he continued. “We had a lot of attorneys. They included the Lawyers Committee for Civil Rights out of D.C., MALDEF, the Puerto Rican Legal Defense Fund, NOW, and the Legal Aid Society of Alameda County where I worked out of Oakland as a senior law clerk in the impact litigation unit.”

He started as a summer management intern with the General Services Administration as a GS-5 employee in 1972 while in law school. Then he went to work for the Department of Defense compliance division in Burlingame.

They merged all the compliance divisions under the Labor Department.

“They leaped me from a GS-9 to a 12,” he stated. “So, I skipped 10 and 11. I met all of the qualifications.”

He ultimately rose to the level of a GS-15 as Deputy Director of Program Operations for the Labor Department’s Office of Federal Contract Compliance Programs.

“I was number four in the agency nationwide and retired after 30 years in government,” Luevano shared. “That happened to a guy who wouldn’t have even gotten into a federal job because of PACE. Yet, I was qualified, I earned it and I moved up.”

“I had a great career. I helped write the regulations on how to detect employment system discrimination and I trained the trainers nationwide,” he continued. “That was because of my law background. I went to Hastings for four years. Even though I don’t have the degree, I have the equivalent of a Master’s in Law.”

About the timing for the lawsuit settlement Luévano shared, “Our lawyers showed up. Their lawyers showed up, the attorneys for the outgoing Carter Administration. The attorneys for the Reagan Administration showed up and wanted to put a stop to the resolution of the Consent Decree. The judge said, ‘No, you’re not in power, yet.’”

“We were all happy, we signed the Decree and made history,” he stated. “I’m humbled by this tremendous achievement.”

Luévano was recognized for his efforts at one of the conferences of LULAC, the League of United Latin American Citizens, in which he later rose to the level of California State Director and V.P for the Far West. Image de California gave him an award during one of their conferences at which he spoke about the Consent Decree.

“If we hadn’t accomplished that we’d still be back in the dark ages of discrimination,” Luévano stated.

“I’m actually writing a book, a memoir about it,” he added. “I’m working with Harvard on that.”

Luévano even has his own Wikipedia page.

He and his wife Argentina have been involved in the Antioch community with the Kiwanis Club of the Delta-Antioch, where he was president last year and Argentina is currently secretary. They both also served as Lt. Governors for the organization in Division 26, Area 9 in Northern California. Then Angel was elected as Trustee for the entire Division which includes California, Nevada and Hawaii.

In addition, since May 2004, Angel has also served as Executive Director for Todos Unidos, an Antioch-based non-profit organization established to raise the educational, economic, health and social outcomes of underserved communities along the Suisun Bay and the greater San Joaquin Delta area.