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For Immediate Release: Wednesday, April 22, 2009
Contact: Adrienne Ammerman or Mary Robbins, 202-588-5180
Supreme Court to Hear Firefighters’ Civil Rights Case
Outcome may have far-reaching consequences for hiring and promotion policies for millions of employers
(Washington, DC) The Supreme Court will hear oral arguments today in the case Ricci v. DeStefano, in which it will consider whether a municipality may decline to certify the results of a civil service exam when it has a good faith belief that certifying the test would violate Title VII by having a discriminatory impact on minority job applicants. The National Women’s Law Center (NWLC) recently filed a friend-of-the-court brief in support of the respondents in the case.
The civil service exam at issue in this case had an indisputable disparate impact on African American and Hispanic firefighters; no African American firefighters and only one Hispanic firefighter scored high enough on the exam to be promoted. But the white firefighter petitioners are claiming that the City of New Haven’s efforts to remedy discrimination in fact constitute reverse discrimination.
The Court’s decision in this case will greatly affect the ability of employers to voluntarily remedy discriminatory policies and practices against women and people of color. The entry of women into nontraditional areas of employment such as firefighting was made possible by disparate impact challenges to recruiting, hiring, and promotion practices that would otherwise likely have remained unexamined and unchanged. Under Title VII, it is an employer’s responsibility to regularly review and monitor its employment practices, and upon finding that one of these practices has an adverse impact on a specific class of employees, discontinue its use.
“It is critical that employers are supported and not punished when they follow the law and voluntarily root out unfair barriers to equal opportunity,” stated Marcia D. Greenberger, Co-President of NWLC. “Given the persistence of race and sex discrimination in fields such as firefighting, employers have a continuing responsibility to evaluate their selection criteria and take action to address discrimination when it occurs. The City of New Haven should be applauded, not penalized, for throwing out the bad tests.”
In 2003, the City of New Haven gave oral and written examinations to promote fifteen firefighters to fill supervisor position vacancies in its Fire Department. After receiving the results of the exams, the City discovered that there were significant racial disparities in the candidate passage rates. The City held public hearings to determine whether the tests may have been flawed, and ultimately determined that the exam results should not be certified.
The Petitioners, firefighters who qualified for the supervisor positions under the flawed test, brought a lawsuit against the City – erroneously claiming that discarding the test discriminated against them based on their race. The district court granted the City’s motion for summary judgment and held that the Petitioners’ arguments were without merit. The Second Circuit Court of Appeals affirmed the decision of the district court. The Supreme Court will hear the case today, April 22.
“Despite the progress we’ve made as a nation in expanding opportunities for women in employment, discrimination still exists,” Greenberger stated. “The Supreme Court should make clear that employers can respond to evidence of discrimination without fear of being hauled into court for doing so.”
The City of New Haven’s voluntary response to evidence of discrimination in its examinations was a fair and commonsense approach. The Supreme Court should uphold its own prior decisions, and determine that the City’s action was an act of nondiscrimination under both statutory and constitutional standards.
The Ricci v. DeStefano amicus brief is available here: http://nwlc.org/pdf/NWLC-Partnership%20Ricci%20Brief%20Final.pdf.
For more information or to interview Marcia D. Greenberger, please contact Adrienne Ammerman or Mary Robbins at 202-588-5180.
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