Court of Appeals Victory in Chicago Firefighter Discrimination Case

The Defenders Online
(NAACP Legal Defense Fund, Inc.)
Posted By The Editors May 13th, 2011

(New York, New York) – This morning, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit ruled in favor of a class of over 6,000 qualified African-American firefighter applicants who were unfairly denied the opportunity to work for the Chicago Fire Department. Last Spring, after over a decade of litigation, the NAACP Legal Defense & Educational Fund, Inc. (LDF) and co-counsel won a unanimous victory for the African-American firefighter applicants in the Supreme Court. The Court of Appeals’ decision today, also unanimous, decisively rejected Chicago’s attempt to evade that Supreme Court ruling.
“After many years fighting for justice, our African-American clients will finally have a fair chance to serve their City,” said John Payton, LDF’s Director-Counsel who argued the case in the Supreme Court. “The only remaining step is speedy implementation of a robust remedy for this long-standing injustice. The City of Chicago will be better for it. And beyond the immediate results in Chicago, this case will help ensure that no other fire department or employer utilizes a discriminatory test to unjustifiably eliminate fully qualified applicants of any race.

Full Story: http://www.thedefendersonline.com/2011/05/13/court-of-appeals-victory-in-chicago-firefighter-discrimination-case/

Berrien Reported to be new EEOC Chair Nominee

The Washington Post
Al Kamen
April 29, 2009

Latest word is that Jackie Berrian, associate director-counsel of the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund, is said to be the pick to become chairman of the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. The vice chairmanship is expected to go to Thomas Saenz, counsel to Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa (D). There had been talk that he was a likely pick to run the civil rights division at Justice, but that didn't pan out.
There was also talk a while back that White House deputy counsel Cassandra Butts might take over the troubled EEOC, but she's been spending lots of time these days on judicial appointments -- there are 69 vacancies and only three nominees so far. With that many seats left to fill, she decided to stay on at the White House.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/04/28/AR2009042803534_2.html?sub=AR

Fight or Flight

Diverse Online
Feature Stories
Fight or Flight
By Jamal Watson
Aug 23, 2007, 09:00

Ted Shaw and other diversity proponents retool while Ward Connerly gloats.
By Jamal Watson

Opponents of higher education affirmative action programs are gearing up to launch their largest attack in recent years. The planned assault comes in the wake of the recent U.S. Supreme Court ruling that severely limited the use of race in K-12 integration plans.
“I believe that we are now poised for a coup de grâce to say that race preferences in the eyes of the public should not be used,” says Ward Connerly, the chairman of the American Civil Rights Institute, a conservative organization based in Sacramento, Calif., that opposes racial and gender preferences.
It was Connerly who orchestrated Proposition 209, a California ballot initiative that outlawed race and gender preferences in state hiring and university admissions. A similar bill passed in Michigan last year.
Now, he is leading a national effort aimed at placing similar anti-affirmative action initiatives on the November 2008 presidential ballot in Arizona, Colorado, Missouri, Nebraska and Oklahoma.
“This is going to be Super Tuesday for equal rights,” Connerly says. “I think it’s very clear that we are witnessing an end to an era.”
The imminent assault on affirmative action has some wondering why more civil rights groups aren’t actively strategizing a defense. One possible explanation is that the groups simply don’t have the money necessary to mount an aggressive campaign. And a legal climate that appears increasingly hostile to affirmative action, combined with indifference from civil rights leaders and younger generations, could signal that the battle may be a losing one.
Dr. William F. Tate, the president of the American Educational Research Association and a professor of education at Washington University in St. Louis, predicts that Connerly’s well-organized and well-financed effort will likely pass in Missouri.
Connerly’s group has raised millions of dollars and is planning to launch public service announcements in the battleground states aimed at convincing voters to abandon state-funded affirmative action programs. Further weakening the ability of pro-affirmative action groups to engage in a serious legal fight is the fact that the highest court in the land is solidly conservative and unsympathetic to affirmative action. In the years since its 2003 Grutter v. Bollinger decision affirmed race-conscious admissions at the University of Michigan, the Court has added Chief Justice John Roberts and Justice Samuel Alito, both staunch conservatives. With five conservative-leaning Justices, most observers were accurately skeptical that the Court would rule in favor of race-conscious school segregation remedies in the recent K-12 cases.
“I think this was an illogical ruling, but no one was really surprised,” says Tate.
It appears that the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund is the lone organization that has made this issue its main priority. Even its parent organization, the NAACP, which is a separate nonprofit group, seems to have taken a back seat in the battle. For decades, the NAACP aggressively took on the issue of unequal educational opportunities, but the major highlight of this year’s annual convention was the symbolic burial — with a casket and pallbearers — of the “N” word.
Ted Shaw says he isn’t willing to concede defeat to anti-affirmative action groups.
Observers generally agree that there appears to be a degree of complacency among some Blacks, particularly the older generation, who wonder whether affirmative action is the most pressing issue facing the community.

[To see the entire article, go to: http://diverseeducation.com/artman/publish/article_9203.shtml ]

Affirmative Action Still In Play, Says Departing LDF Leader

Diverse Online
Current News
By Jamal Watson Aug 19, 2007, 22:34

Theodore M. Shaw, president-director counsel of the NAACP Legal Defense and Education Fund who is stepping down February 2008, talks to Diverse about his future plans and the ongoing fight to end inequality in education. He also has some choice words for anti-affirmative action advocate Ward Connerly.

Earlier this year, Theodore M. Shaw, president-director counsel of the NAACP Legal Defense and Education Fund, announced that he was planning to step down in February 2008.
Shaw became the fifth person to lead the 67-year-old organization in May 2004. Shaw first joined the LDF in 1982, after working as a trial attorney in the Civil Rights Division of the U.S. Department of Justice under the Carter administration. There, he litigated civil rights cases throughout the country at the trial and appellate levels, and in the U.S. Supreme Court.
But when President Reagan was elected in 1981, the Columbia University-trained law school graduate knew that it was time for him to leave. He felt that Reagan’s policies and record on civil rights was lacking and felt that he needed a forum to litigate around issues that affect people of color. In 1990, Shaw left the LDF to join the faculty of the University of Michigan Law School, but returned after just three years to become the associate director-counsel of LDF. When Elaine Jones stepped down as director in 2004, Shaw took over the helm of the organization. Diverse recently sat down with Shaw to talk with him about his career at LDF and the future of race relations.

Diverse: Why have you decided to step down from the Legal Defense and Education Fund?

TS: I’ve been at the Legal Defense Fund for almost all of the last 25 years and I’ve been practicing civil rights law for almost 30 years. It’s a good chunk of time. I believe deeply that one should not stay in one place forever and particularly when one is in the leadership position. The truth of the matter is that the work I’ve loved more than anything else is litigation, wrestling with the issues. In this position, fund raising and administrative work is essential to the organization, but is not why I came here, and it’s not what I think my strength is, though I think it’s a necessity, and I’ve done it and I continue to do it.

But more importantly, on a personal level, I’ve been thinking about the rest of my life and the opportunities that are open to me now that may not be open to me 10 years from now, and I think it’s important to pass it on and to know when to do that. I have no desire or intention to leave the issues that I care about. I can’t do that anymore than a leopard can change its spot. On the other hand, there may be another way to weigh in on these issues. I’ve spent some time in and out of academia in my career. The only three years I was away from the Legal Defense Fund were my three years teaching law school full-time at the University of Michigan. When I think about what I want to do, academia or a place to think and write is at the top of my list, but I haven’t decided yet.

Diverse: You’ve been involved in a wide range of issues from opposing the death penalty to voter registration. Yet, you are most often associated with the battle to preserve affirmative action. Where is our nation on this issue?

TS: A lot of people don’t really understand affirmative action, and too many people including people of color, Black people, are willing to cut and run, saying we lost that battle when this battle is still very much in play. They don’t understand what is at stake, and they think that the things that are very near and dear to them are safe when in fact they are in the cross hairs of our adversaries.

Diverse: What do you think of Ward Connerly and others who are fighting to eliminate race-conscious affirmative action programs?

TS: There are a lot of people who may be confused and people who in good faith struggle with affirmative action, but the people who are leading this fight are not confused about what they are doing, and many of them are pursuing an old agenda. It’s old wine in new bottles. The fact that you have someone like Ward Connerly serving that interest doesn’t in any way change or dilute what their agenda is. There have always been Black folks unfortunately who have been willing to serve their master. I think that what is most important for all Americans to understand is that if our adversaries get their way, nothing less than all voluntary attempts to address racial inequality would be illegal. You couldn’t have programs aimed at addressing this crisis among Black boys and Black young men because they are race conscious by definition. You couldn’t have scholarships for minority students. You couldn’t have mentoring programs that are specifically aimed at minority students.

[For the entire article, go to: http://diverseeducation.com/artman/publish/article_9177.shtml