[Peace-discuss] Fw: Victory: Judge Rules Firefighter Test Racially Discriminates

[Jenifer Cartwright]

This is a good one...

--- On Fri, 7/24/09, Bill Quigley <alerts at ccrjustice.org> wrote:


From: Bill Quigley <alerts at ccrjustice.org>
Subject: Victory: Judge Rules Firefighter Test Racially Discriminates
To: jencart13 at yahoo.com
Date: Friday, July 24, 2009, 10:58 AM




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Dear CCR Supporter:
This has been an important week in the fight for racial justice. CCR won an important case against the Fire Department of New York (FDNY) for its use of racially discriminatory tests that excluded qualified candidates of color. And, in a statement about the arrest of an Ivy League professor in his Cambridge home, President Obama recognized the profound impact of racial profiling on communities of color.
After more than seven years of litigation, Judge Nicholas G. Garaufis ruled in favor of the Vulcan Society, the fraternal organization of Black firefighters and individual plaintiffs in a class action lawsuit charging the Fire Department of New York with racially discriminatory hiring practices. The FDNY excluded over a thousand qualified candidates of color by using a test with little relation to firefighting - in clear violation of Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. This is a dramatic win in the fight for social justice. Watch an interview with CCR Attorney Shayana Kadidal and Paul Washington of the Vulcan Society on Democracy Now!
In a statement after the arrest of esteemed Harvard Professor Henry Gates by police in his own home, President Obama said: "[T]here is a long history in this country of African-Americans and Latinos being stopped by law enforcement disproportionately. And that's just a fact." As you may know, CCR filed a class action lawsuit last year against the New York City Police Department (NYPD) for its unlawful stops-and-frisks of Black and Latino New Yorkers. With data released to the public for the first time ever as a result of our case, we discovered that from 2005 through 2008, approximately 80 percent of total stops made were of Blacks and Latinos, who comprise 25 percent and 28 percent of New York City's total population, respectively. During this same time period, only approximately 10 percent of stops were of Whites, who comprise 44 percent of the city's population.
Even more disturbing is the fact that that Blacks and Latinos are more likely to be frisked after a NYPD-initiated stop than Whites and that Blacks and Latinos are more likely to have physical force used against them during a NYPD-initiated stop than Whites.
Racial profiling is a reality for African Americans and Latinos throughout the United States. President Obama rightly stated what people of color - over 400,000 thousand in New York City alone last year - know firsthand: ineffective policing techniques that target communities of color must stop. To learn more about stops-and-frisks by the NYPD and find ideas for ending racial profiling in your community, click here.
Thank you for your continued support.
Yours truly,

Bill Quigley
Legal Director


 




 

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