DPD officers file civil rights suit against city 06:04 PM CDT on Tuesday, July 6, 2004 By REBECCA LOPEZ / WFAA-TV Six white police officers and one Hispanic officer have filed a federal civil rights lawsuit against the City of Dallas. The seven officers, who work in various divisions within the Dallas Police Department, allege racial discrimination after being passed up for promotions and transfers. In their lawsuit, the officers said there is a pattern and practice of discrimination against white and non-Spanish-speaking Hispanics. They claim that instead, "minority candidates were chosen for promotions and transfers solely because of their race." The officers allege all the transfers happened during former chief Terrell Bolton's tenure. "I understand the need to diversify, but the law also says you can't do these things solely based on race," said Rhonda Cates, the officers' attorney. The officers said that they were passed over for promotions in favor of black and Hispanic officers. In one example, two white officers said they asked to be transferred into the narcotics division, but instead, "lesser-qualified minority candidates were chosen to transfer in narcotics." "They had been in the department less time and had no experience in narcotics at all," Cates said. Some officers claim when they spoke out against their commanders about the transfers, they suffered retaliation and were labeled racists. They said they had to work in a hostile environment. The officers are asking for $1 million each, and they want the department to rewrite the transfer policy, saying the current one isn't fair. City attorney Madeleine Johnson said she has not seen the lawsuit, and cannot comment. http://www.dallasnews.com/sharedcon.../stories/wfaa040706_am_copsuit.2d19ee2ec.html Just thought it was interesting. I don't know what kind of case they think they have, but it's just another front in the affirmative action battle. Dallas did spend a good many years passing over African-American officers for promotions. It is an open question how you make up for that without discriminating against others.
Thanks so much. I admit that phrase wasn't in the original article. I used it to help clarify why they were suing.
I think their point was that the Hispanic officers who were promoted were bilingual while the one suing is not (though one might think that being bilingual would be one thing that could catapult a lesser-experienced candidate over a more experienced candidate).
That's not much of a point, in fact it puts a serious dent in their case. Crap, if George W. Bush can put on his resume that he knows spanish (has anybody heard him talk? I think Peggy Hill has a better accent), I think these guys can suck it up and learn too.
One of the things that might work for them, though, is the fact that the former chief did demote a bunch of assistant chiefs mostly because they were white and then double-promoted some less-experienced black officers to take their case. Those demoted assistant chiefs filed lawsuits, and the city settled for significant sums (though I believe one or two proceeded to trial and the city ended up winning the cases, making the huge settlements they gave out to everyone else kind of galling, I'm sure). I'm not sure that speaking Spanish is a component of the job.... For that matter, it's not clear that any of the African-American officers who were promoted ahead of these officers who are suing speak Spanish. The article just mentioned that Hispanics who spoke Spanish were promoted faster than non-Spanish speakers.
It doesn't matter if its a component of a job; Proving a title VII case is hard enough as it is, but this is something that the city can point to and say that is a qualification that these guys had that the others didn't (moreover, its a qualification that the others could acquire should they so choose) that is not race based, unless you want to argue that it was just a pretext...but in law enforcment that would be rather difficult.
No such thing as reverse discrimination. If true, it is just plain ole discrimination, and it is wrong. DD
That would only be a defense in the cases where it was a Spanish-speaking officer who was promoted. If the non-Spanish-speaking Hispanic was passed over in favor of lesser qualified African-Americans who didn't speak Spanish, it might make for a better case. But since it was mentioned in the article, it sounds like speaking Spanish helps get people promoted, and I could see how a department would consider that as something that would be considered when promoting an officer (especially in a city that does have a large Spanish-speaking population) and be perfectly justified in considering that.... like you said.
