Washington v. Davis’s Empirical Analysis
1976
Citation profile
2,350 federal appellate · 690 district · 695 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 6,985 later decisions (229 by the Supreme Court) — most recently March 2026 · most notably Ashcroft v. Iqbal (2009), Batson v. Kentucky (1986)
2,350 federal appellate · 690 district · 695 state decisions — followed in 45 states
Later decisions citing this case, by decade. The current decade is in progress, and our corpus holds fewer opinions from the most recent years, so the latest bars are undercounted — not a real decline.
Appellate journey
reviewedDavis v. Washington (from District of Columbia Circuit Court of Appeals)
Relationships
Applies 42 U.S.C. § 1981 (Civil Rights Act of 1866) · 42 U.S.C. § 2000E (§ 713 of the Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964) · 42 U.S.C. § 2000E (§ 703 of the Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964) · 5 U.S.C. § 3304 · 5 U.S.C. § 7151
Relies on McDonnell Douglas Corp. v. Green · Griggs v. Duke Power Co. · Udall v. Tallman · Albemarle Paper Co. v. Moody
Cited together with Village of Arlington Heights v. Metropolitan Housing Development Corp. · Griggs v. Duke Power Co. · Personnel Administrator of Mass. v. Feeney · International Brotherhood of Teamsters v. United States · McDonnell Douglas Corp. v. Green
Most-quoted passages
The sentences later courts lift from this opinion, ranked by how many decisions quote each — the parts of the opinion doing the work. These counts are smaller than the citation total above because most of the 6,985 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“bears more heavily on one race than another,”
217 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority“the qualifying tests are appropriate for the selection of qualified applicants for the job in question.”
46 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority“Frequently the most probative evidence of intent will be objective evidence of what actually happened rather than evidence describing the subjective state of mind of the actor. For normally the actor is presumed to have intended the natural consequences of his deeds. This is particularly true in the case of governmental action which is frequently the product of compromise, of collective decisionmaking, and of mixed motivation.”
38 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the concurrence
How this case has been treated — in progress
Whether each later court followed, distinguished, criticized, or overruled this decision. The treatment classification (task #35) runs highest-cited cases first and lights up here as it reaches this one.