CC PACKET 02061996 - Laserfiche WebLink

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• HIRING COMMITMENT In the Court's Order of November 6, 1995, the defendant cities were required by Order No. 4 on page 7 to submit a plan to accommodate the implementation of programs as described in finding 14c on page 5 of the Order, under which the cities were obligated to pay a statutory penalty in the amount of$300,000 to the state of Minnesota, or in lieu of such penalty, establish a reasonable minority race hiring commitment satisfactory to the court. This section of the memorandum addresses that requirement. The court has recognized the validity of the use of cognitive skills tests for police officer selection. The record demonstrates that African Americans, as a group, score lower on such tests than white applicants. Therefore, the evidence suggests that, absent compensating factors, the selection rate for African Americans may be somewhat lower than the selection rate for whites. There is no evidence to suggest that the overall selection rate for African Americans would have been higher than the selection rate of whites, even in the absence of tests having no impermissible adverse impact. During the meeting among the Court, counsel, and representatives of a number of the parties on December 21, 1995, there was discussion of whether the hiring commitment should define the cities' obligation only by reference to new hirings, occurring after the suit was • commenced or some later date, as opposed to giving the defendant cities credit for those African American hirings which have already occurred. An order which did not recognize African American hirings which have already occurred would not be warranted because it would exceed the necessity of remedying the effects of past discrimination by resulting in an overall selection of African Americans which would substantially exceed the selection rate of whites. If a race conscious remedy is justified at all, it can only be to remedy the effects of past discrimination. If voluntary action of the defendants has reduced such effects, such reduction must be acknowledge as a limitation on the permissibility of a race conscious remedy. Defendants cannot justifiably expand their authority to engage in race conscious hiring activities by remedying the effects of past discrimination twice. In response to the Court's Order, defendant cities submit the commitment to reach a point at which the African American hiring rate from 1979 onward meets or exceeds the hiring rate of whites during the same period. That is, the ratio of African Americans hired to African Americans in the applicant pool meets or exceeds the ratio of whites hired to whites in the applicant pool. (African Americans hired equal or exceeds whites hired African Americans in the applicant pool whites in the applicant pool) The determination of the denominators of the two ratios (i.e., the numbers of African Americans and whites in the applicant pool) is complicated by the fact that not all defendants • who join in this proposal continue to be members of the MPRS and other members of the MPRS are not defendants. Arguably, each of the defendant cities would have a different applicant pool after they left the MPRS. Hmxever, it is not practical to use individual city applicant pools because the numbers of African americans in the applicant pool in the case of a single city will CU99571 1 4?110-2