The Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights

Unanimous Supreme Court Allows Firefighter Racial Discrimination Suit to Proceed

A unanimous U.S. Supreme Court held on May 24 that a group of African-American firefighters can sue the city of Chicago over a discriminatory hiring test, overturning a lower court decision that said that the firefighters filed their claim too late.

Between 1996 and 2002, the city of Chicago conducted 11 rounds of hiring relying on the results of a test plaintiffs alleged caused a disparate impact on African-Americans in violation of Title VII.

African-American applicants filed a discrimination suit and won their case in federal district court.  However, the Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit reversed, saying that the claim was filed more than 300 days after the discriminatory act – the filing window for disparate impact claims established by Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 – which the Seventh Circuit determined was the test itself, not each hiring decision made as a result of that test.

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