NYC discriminated against black, Latino teachers: court
12/5/2012COMMENTS (0)
By Nate Raymond
NEW
YORK, Dec 5 (Reuters) - New York City's Board of Education
discriminated against black and Latino teachers by requiring them to
pass a standardized test that wasn't properly validated to become
licensed to teach in the city's schools, a U.S. judge ruled on
Wednesday.
The
decision by U.S. District Judge Kimba Wood in Manhattan came in a
long-running class action. The ruling permits the plaintiffs to seek the
appointment of a monitor to evaluate whether the current version of the
test has any of the invalid provisions in place from 1996 to 2000.
At
the same time, Wood decertified the class of plaintiffs insofar as it
was seeking back pay. The decision follows a landmark 2011 ruling by the
U.S. Supreme Court in Wal-Mart Stores Inc v. Dukes, which limited the ability of plaintiffs to group together in class actions.
Lawyers
for the plaintiffs said Wood's ruling left the door open for teachers
who took the test and number in the hundreds if not thousands to seek
damages individually or for the court to certify smaller classes.
Wednesday's
ruling marked the latest instance of a federal judge taking issue with
New York City employment tests. A federal judge in Brooklyn in March
ordered the city to pay up to $128.7 million after finding New York City
Fire Department exams had "discriminatory effects" on minority
applicants from 1999 to 2007.
"These
are two major federal court decisions invalidating public employment
tests," said Baher Azmy, the legal director at the Center for
Constitutional Rights, which represents the plaintiffs in both cases.
Eamonn
Foley, a lawyer with the New York City Law Department, in a statement
said the judge was correct to decertify the class with regard to its
back pay and injunctive relief demands and that the city didn't break
the law with regard to its use of an earlier test.
"The city is reviewing its options with regard to the remaining portions of the decision," he said.
FOUR TEACHERS
The
lawsuit was filed in 1996 by four teachers -- three black and one
Latina -- who claimed that the testing practices of the New York State
Education Department and the New York City Board of Education were
discriminatory.
To
gain permanent licenses, the teachers had to pass the National Teacher
Core Battery exam, which the state began using in 1984, and its
successor, the Liberal Arts and Sciences Test, introduced in 1993. A
newer version of the LAST has been in place since 2000 and wasn't at
issue, the decision said.
The
lawsuit claimed that white teachers passed at a higher rate than blacks
and Latinos and that the exam had a disparate impact. First-time black
and Latino takers of the LAST passed at 57.9 percent and 55.1 percent,
compared to a 90.25 percent pass rate for whites, the plaintiffs said in
a 2003 filing.
Those
who failed the exam lost their conditional licenses. As a result, they
could only work as substitute teachers and had lower salaries, benefits
and seniority, the plaintiffs said.
About
8,000 to 15,000 teachers have suffered demotion, termination, reduced
pay and other losses because they failed the tests, according to the
Center for Constitutional Rights. The center's Web site did not provide a
time frame for that statistic.
The city contended the exam was job-related, but Wood found that the test wasn't properly validated.
In
granting the motion to decertify the class related to monetary damages
for back pay, Wood said the class could remain intact for the purpose of
seeking a court finding that the board violated Title VII of the Civil
Rights Act of 1964.
Damages
could, though, still be in play, said Joshua Sohn, a lawyer at DLA
Piper working pro bono for the plaintiffs. How the damages would be
determined will be the subject of a response from the plaintiffs the
court requested by Dec. 13.
"(The
decision) leaves the possibility to certify subclasses for damages, or
we could propose some other framework to get there," Sohn said.
A status conference is scheduled for Jan. 10.
Since the case was filed, it has wound its way through the courts and passed through four judges.
A
class of plaintiffs was certified in 2001 by former U.S. district judge
Constance Baker Motley in Manhattan, the second judge to oversee the
case after receiving it from Judge Deborah Batts. Following a five-month
bench trial in 2003, the judge found the city and state's use of the
exam did not violate Title VII.
In
2006, the 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals reversed Motley's findings.
The appeals court tossed the teachers' claims against the state,
leaving just the city as a defendant.
Motley
died in 2005 before the 2nd Circuit ruled, so the case was later
reassigned to Judge Sydney Stein. It was then transferred again, this
time to Wood in 2009.
The case is Gulino v. Board of Education, U.S. District Court, Southern District of New York, No. 96-08414.
For Gulino: Joshua Sohn, DLA Piper.
For the New York City Board of Education: Eamonn Foley, New York City Law Department.
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