Minority Firefighters Race Against The Clock

Fourteen years ago the city of Chicago gave an exam to applicants to their firefighter jobs. 37% of those applicants were black. When Chicago got the results, it bracketed all applicants into three groups, and said it would be hiring from the high-score group first. Only 11.5% of the applicants in that group were black, and understandably they sued.

However, those black applicants waited until after Chicago had hired some firefighters, filing suit 430 days after Chicago had announced the results and the groupings. That delay, Chicago says, means that the applicants complained after the 300-day statute of limitations on racial employment discrimination had run out. The black applicants countered that their lawsuit was filed only 181 days after Chicago had hired firefighters on the basis of the test, and that that hiring decision was the discrimination of which they complained.

This dispute about the timing of the statute of limitations today went before the U.S. Supreme Court.

Most of the Justices seemed to favor the applicants’ positions, including even conservative members of the Court. Chief Justice John Roberts seemed bothered by the idea that, even if the second tier of applicants had been told they would likely be hired, those applicants did not file suit as soon as the racially-uneven pools were announced. Worse, as pointed out by Justice John Paul Stevens, if the city of Chicago announced that it would only hire firefighters with high school degrees (assuming there was racial disparity in graduation rates), no one could file a complaint after 300 days. Even someone who only later decided to become a firefighter would have no right to complain about racial discrimination. If a city giving a racially-biased test made it 300 days without complaint, it could continue to use the test until the end of time.

On the other hand, some Justices seemed worried about the consequences of a decision in favor of the applicants. Justice Roberts worried that every time Chicago made a hiring decision it would give black applicants another opportunity to sue. Worse, a city receiving test results with an apparent racial bias would have to choose between using the test for hiring, and risk facing lawsuits whenever it hired someone, or throwing out the test, and potentially facing a lawsuit like the one brought by white New Haven, Connecticut, firefighters last year. Roberts conceded, however, that cities face potential lawsuits over all kinds of issues, and they have to figure out the best course of action to take.

Overall, though, the Justices seemed likely to rule in favor of the black applicants. Justice Antonin Scalia went as far as to argue with the applicant’s lawyer about whether the announcement of results is a violation at all. That announcement, according to Chicago, is the only violation.

The case is Lewis v. Chicago.

In VA-35, Both Campaigns Predict Tight Race

The race to replace 35th District Delegate and Democratic Attorney General candidate Steve Shannon is within a 2-point margin – or at least it was two weeks ago, according to polls conducted for Republican candidate Jim Hyland.

Hyland’s margin, described by his campaign manager Kevin Conroy as “within the margin of error,” reflects a tightening of the race since a July benchmark poll, when pollsters Barry Zeplowitz and Bill Lee of TelOpinion Research indicated in a confidential memo posted on Hyland’s website that Hyland held a 7-point lead 43 percent to 36 percent lead, with 21 percent undecided. The memo did not indicate the size of the sample or whether “likely voter” filters were used.

Read more at Collins on Politics

Andrew Napolitano Says Governments Denied Blacks’ Rights In The Past

By Michael Combier-Talk Radio News Service

Former Judge Andrew P. Napolitano used an 1857 Supreme Court decision as a metaphor to argue that American governments have legally suspended the rights of Blacks for more than 300 years.

Judge Napolitano cited Dred Scott v. Sanford, a decision that ruled that people of African descent were not U.S. citizens, and therefore not entitled to constitutional protections.

Napolitano’s remarks came during a presentation for his new book, “Dred Scott’s Revenge: A Legal History of Race and Freedom in America,” Thursday at the CATO Institute in Washington D.C.

Said Napolitano, “a series of governments [state and federal] have not withstanding the lofty words of the Declaration of Independence...and some efforts to incorporate those ideas in the Constitution...A government that would think it could write any law, enact any policy and, enforce any program not withstanding its utter rejection of the natural law.”

To prove his point, Napolitano added that the Supreme Court upheld the Jim Crow laws of Southern states in Plessy v. Ferguson.

“These are examples, historic and modern, of government thinking that it can do away with the natural law, that it can suspend the free will of a class of human beings.”

For Napolitano, the Constitution is “a glorious liberty document, with obviously some defect in it. It is for the first time in the history of the world the inverse of the way liberty came about...It is the greatest document for the preservation of human liberty ever written in the Western world.”

Supreme Court: Either Way New Haven Will Be Sued

by Christina Lovato, University of New Mexico-Talk Radio News Service

In 2003, the New Haven, Connecticut, Fire Department administered written and oral exams to determine which employees would be eligible for promotions to lieutenant and captain; there were seven captain and eight lieutenant vacancies, but despite those who passed, no one moved up.

Of the 41 applicants who took the captain exam, the top nine scorers included seven whites and two Hispanics, and of the 77 applicants who took the lieutenant exam, the top 10 scorers where white.

After the Civil Service Board discovered from the scores that no black employees and only two Hispanics passed the test, they determined that the results had produced a significant disparate impact and chose to not certify the results.

The only information provided to the firefighters and public were the scores, given by race and gender. Test-takers did not receive their individual scores.

Seventeen white candidates and one Hispanic candidate who had taken the exams filed a lawsuit in federal court against the City of New Haven, the mayor, and other city executives.

Frank Ricci, a firefighter who took the exam stated that the questions on the test were drawn from “nationally recognized” books and believes the test was fair, and therefore the city should honor the results.

Part of Ricci’s case is that before throwing out the results the city should at least have to consider whether the exam was fair.

In the Supreme Court today the justices expressed concern over the bind that New Haven is facing: because the city didn’t use the results, they were sued for reverse discrimination, but if the city had used the results, they could have faced a lawsuit for discrimination.

Justice Souter expressed this dilemma by saying “You’re damned if you do, damned if you don’t.”

The decision in the case of Ricci vs. DeStefano is expected in May.

Supreme Court considers "coalition districts" under the Voting Rights Act

Bartlett v. Strickland

Background: North Carolina House District 18 straddles two counties. The state constitution says that counties should not be divided between districts. The District was created in 2003 and was justified as being necessary to satisfy the Voting Rights Act (VRA), since the new district contains enough black people to get black candidates elected. The state courts have in past held that the VRA trumps the state constitution on this issue. In May 2004, county officials from one of the counties sued to get the district lines redrawn.

The lawsuit arises because the district is not a "majority minority district," where a minority group makes up a majority in the district (e.g. a district where blacks account for 51% of the population). Instead, the district is a "coalition district": blacks make up 39.36% of the population, but they make up 53.7% of registered Democrats, and Democrats make up 59% of the population. Therefore blacks are able to get candidates elected. Thus, North Carolina argues, the district is justified under the VRA.

Most of the argument session focused on whether the 50% threshold generally imposed for VRA-justified districts was arbitrary or not. While a minority group, voting as a block, can get candidates elected if it constitutes 50% of the population, it can (obviously) get candidates elected with less than 50%, and it may not be able to get candidates elected even if it has over 50% if it doesn't vote in a block. Justices (especially Justice Scalia) also had concerns about getting the judiciary branch involved in every districting decision.

The Court's decision will likely rest on how willing the Justices are to look at specific cases as opposed to abstract theories, and how willing the Justices are to let the courts get involved in districting decisions. The Court's decision will likely come well after this year's election, meaning (as the county official noted) it will be enforced in a single election before 2010's census.