## Facts

- Salt River Project Agricultural Improvement and Power District operated a power generating station on the Navajo reservation under a lease with the Navajo Nation.
- The lease required Salt River to give an employment preference to Navajo Nation members living on the reservation, and otherwise to other Navajo members.
- Harold Dawavendewa, a Hopi tribal member living near the reservation, applied in 1991 for an “Operator Trainee” position at the station and was not hired.
- Dawavendewa alleged Salt River did not consider him because he was Hopi rather than Navajo and sued under Title VII for national origin discrimination.
- The district court dismissed for failure to state a claim, concluding (1) tribal affiliation bias is not “national origin” discrimination and (2) Title VII’s Indian preference provision permitted the policy.

## Issues

1. Whether discrimination based on tribal affiliation (preferring Navajo over Hopi) can constitute “national origin” discrimination under Title VII.
2. Whether Title VII’s Indian preference exception, 42 U.S.C. § 2000e-2(i), authorizes a private employer’s preference for members of a specific tribe.

## Decision

- The Ninth Circuit reversed and remanded.
- Tribal affiliation discrimination may fall within Title VII’s prohibition on national origin discrimination.
- Section 2000e-2(i) did not authorize Salt River’s Navajo-specific preference as applied to exclude other Indians.
- Dawavendewa’s complaint stated a plausible Title VII claim; dismissal under Rule 12(b)(6) was improper.

## Legal Principles

- Title VII “national origin” discrimination can include differential treatment based on tribal affiliation when the classification functions as an ancestry- and ethnicity-linked identity.
- The Indian preference exception in 42 U.S.C. § 2000e-2(i) permits limited preferences “in favor of Indians” in specified reservation-related employment settings, but it is not a blanket authorization for tribe-specific preferences by private employers.
- A private employer cannot justify otherwise prohibited Title VII discrimination solely by pointing to a lease provision with a tribe or compliance with tribal law.

## Conclusion

The court allowed a Title VII claim to proceed where a private employer’s reservation-based hiring practice allegedly preferred Navajo applicants over a Hopi applicant, holding that tribe-based exclusion can be national origin discrimination and that Title VII’s Indian preference exception does not automatically protect a Navajo-only preference.


Dawavendewa v. Salt River Project Agric. Improvement & Power Dist., 154 F.3d 1117 (9th Cir. 1998)