Articles Posted in Race Discrimination

This month marks the 50th anniversary of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.’s assassination in Memphis.  Dr. King went to Memphis 50 years ago to help black sanitation workers receive fair treatment in the workplace.  The City of Memphis treated black sanitation workers far worse than white sanitation workers.  White sanitation workers, for instance, could shower at work after they finished the filthy job of collecting people’s trash but black sanitation workers could not.  The City also did not provide black sanitation workers with shelter from storms which led to two black sanitation workers getting crushed to death inside of a trash truck where they took shelter during a storm.  To secure better working conditions, the black sanitation workers went on strike.

The union that these black sanitation workers formed back in the 1960s is still around today.  That union is still trying to secure better working conditions for its members, including air conditioning in garbage trucks, better pay, and benefits for temporary employees.

Employment discrimination against black workers has changed a lot since 1968 but racial prejudice against black people still impacts the workplace.  In Memphis, a majority black city, the poverty rate for black residents is twice the poverty rate for white residents.  “I love Memphis. I’m so optimistic about our future,” said Memphis Mayor Jim Strickland. “But I don’t want to act like I’m ignorant of our challenges. Violent crime is way too high. Poverty is way too high.  And too few kids are getting properly educated.”

Yesterday, the U.S. First Circuit Court of Appeals, which covers Maine and other New England states, ruled against the Boston Police Department (BPD) in a race discrimination case. The plaintiffs in the case allege that BPD’s use of a hair test to detect drug use has an unlawful disparate impact against black people. The First Circuit held that that BPD may have refused to use a drug test that would have both met its need to detect drug use and not had an adverse impact against black people.

This was the second trip to the First Circuit for this case. As we previously reported, experts for the plaintiffs testified that black people tend to have higher levels of melanin in their hair which causes cocaine and associated chemicals to bind to their hair at a higher rate.  Cocaine and associated chemicals binds to hair when cocaine powder is in the air or when the person has undergone certain cosmetic hair treatments which are more common in the African American community.  These experts also testified that hair tests are relatively unreliable.  In fact, the federal government has refused to authorize hair tests in the screening of federal employees and employees of private industries for which the federal government regulates their drug testing.

The First Circuit determined that BPD’s use of the hair test was “job related” and “consistent with business necessity,” as required by the Civil Rights Act in cases where an employment practice has a disparate impact against racial groups, because the hair tests, while imperfect, were reliable enough. But the First Circuit also determined that BPD may have violated the Civil Rights Act because BPD knew of a less discriminatory alternative to the hair test and refused to use it. That alternative was called the “hair testing plus urinalysis test” and, as the name suggests, involves using a hair test and urinalysis test in tandem to detect drug use. The First Circuit found that there was evidence that this alternative test would have caused less adverse impact against black people while at the same time satisfying BPD’s need to detect drug use.

In recent years, lawmakers have debated whether to prohibit employers from asking about criminal history on job applications.  Those who want to prohibit questions about criminal history in job applications have used the slogan “Ban the Box” because they want employers to remove “yes” or “no” checkbox questions about criminal history from their applications.  Supporters of Ban the Box laws believe that the laws will help black workers who are statistically more likely to have criminal histories than white workers.  They believe that black applicants will have a better chance of getting called for an interview if they do not have to reveal a criminal history on a job application.

Some states and cities around the country have enacted Ban the Box laws.  Researchers recently looked at the effects these laws had on black workers as compared to white workers in New York City and New Jersey.  Surprisingly, these researchers found that Ban the Box laws actually hurt black applicants’ chances of getting called for an interview.

What could explain this counter-intuitive result?  The researchers who conducted the study have several theories.  One theory is that when employers have information about applicants’ races but not their criminal histories, employers base their decisions on the knowledge that, in general, black people are more likely to have criminal histories than white people.  While employers cannot require an applicant to reveal her race on a job application, they can infer race from other information such as the address and name of the applicant.  If an employer believes that an applicant is black and is unable to determine whether the applicant has a criminal history, it may act under the assumption—either consciously or unconsciously—that the black applicant has a criminal history.

This week a federal court in Massachusetts held that a reasonable jury could determine that the Old Colony YMCA subjected an African American employee to racial harassment that created a hostile work environment. The African American employee, Jessika Boone, worked for the YMCA as a caseworker in the YouthBuild program. The YouthBuild program is a community-based educational and vocational training program that serves disadvantaged young people from the Brockton area, over half of whom are African American.

According to Boone, during her time working in the YouthBuild program, a co-worker and a supervisor made racially charged comments about African American people. For example, one employee said that he did “not know why people get so mad about slavery.” Another employee allegedly referred to an African American employee of Egyptian descent as a “dune coon.” A supervisor asked an employee during a meeting if he had seen a pornographic movie called “Big Black Cocks.” Boone’s supervisor also allegedly acted hostilely toward her in ways—such as calling her a “bitch” and “fucking idiot” and giving her the middle finger—that he did not do to white employees. Based on the evidence that Boone presented, the court held that “a reasonable jury could find that she was subjected to a hostile work environment based on her race.”

Many people assume that this type of overt racism does not occur in the workplace any more but that is a flawed assumption. People still utter racial epithets and racially insensitive language in the workplace. The Maine Employee Rights Group has experience with these types of cases representing workers with stories similar to Ms. Boone’s.  If you work in Maine and have experienced this type of racial harassment, call us to learn more about your rights.