News Details
U.S. Supreme Court agrees to hear case brought by HSPRD & others on behalf of Chicago firefighters who contend that the city used a racially discriminatory test to screen applicants.
Sept. 30, 2009PRESS RELEASE OF ARTHUR L. LEWIS
Supreme Court to hear Chicago Firefighter case
For IMMEDIATE Release
September 30, 2009
For further information contact:
Matthew J. Piers, Joshua Karsh
at Hughes Socol Piers Resnick & Dym, Ltd.
(312) 580-0100
This morning, the Supreme Court of the United States issued an order agreeing to review the City of Chicago’s use of a racially discriminatory test to screen applicants for the position of entry-level firefighter in the Chicago Fire Department, in the case Lewis v. City of Chicago. The City relied on the racially discriminatory test to hire firefighters between 1995 and 2002 and, as a result, hired nearly five times as many white firefighters as African American firefighters. The Federal Court determined that the City’s practice was racially discriminatory after a trial on the merits and the City never appealed that finding. Joshua Karsh, one of the attorneys for a class of over 6,000 African American rejected firefighter applicants, said, “ We are delighted by the Supreme Court’s order today. Everybody knows that skin color has nothing, zero, to do with firefighting ability. The City knows that too. For the better part of ten years, the City acted like that wasn’t true. The result was to eliminate equal opportunity in the fire department and to turn the fire department even more overwhelmingly white than it previously was. This is a disgrace. We believe the Supreme Court will now correct this injustice.”
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