The opinion
KAUFMAN, Chief Judge
(dissenting):
I concur in my brother Mansfield’s scholarly opinion. I should like to add the following thoughts, however. As Judge Mansfield’s opinion makes clear, this Court has traveled too far along the road of temporary “goals” as a remedy for past discrimination to permit a single panel to appear to reverse the course consistently followed. It is my view that we can retrace the steps *11 taken by previous panels of this Court only by an en banc, F.R.A.P. 35(a), or by a Supreme Court holding that our earlier decisions have been in error. I am still of the view that the en banc device is often cumbersome and unproductive of the definitive resolution for which it is invoked, see, e. g., Rodriguez v. McGinnis, 456 F.2d 79 (2d Cir. 1972) (en banc), rev’d sub nom. Preiser v. Rodriguez, 407 U.S. 919 , 92 S.Ct. 2459 , 32 L.Ed.2d 805 (1973). But, the issues in the present case are so sharply defined and our prior holdings so clearly applicable that an en banc would have achieved the goal of “maintaining] uniformity of [our] decisions.” F.R.A.P. 35(a).