Teen Involved In Derrion Albert Beating Pledges To Turn Life Around
Teen Involved In Derrion Albert Beating Pledges To Turn Life Around
This is an interesting perspective.
Teen Involved In Derrion Albert Beating Pledges To Turn Life Around
This is an interesting perspective.
Deanna Bellandi
@Assoiciated Press
- The city of Chicago says it’s ready to hire firefighters in a long-running discrimination case if it’s ordered to do so now that the U.S. Supreme Court has found a group of black applicants didn’t wait too long to sue.
The Supreme Court’s decision Monday sent the case back to a lower court. Mara Georges, the city of Chicago’s corporation counsel, said the city plans to hire the would-be firefighters, if the 7th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Chicago determines it should.
“We stand ready and willing to do so, but we need some ruling from the 7th Circuit first,” Georges said.
The city estimates damages and pension obligations in the case could be as high as $45 million.
The court action is the latest in a case spanning 15 years and challenging a 1995 test that was used to cull applicants who hoped to one day become firefighters. It’s also the latest episode in a department with a history of acrimony over racial issues in hiring.
In 2001, a group of white firefighters lost a Supreme Court appeal that challenged an affirmative action plan to promote minorities in the department. In the 1970s, the federal government sued the city alleging the department discriminated against blacks and Hispanics.
In this latest case, officials told applicants who scored below 89 but above 64 on a 1995 test that they had passed but likely wouldn’t be hired as firefighters because a large number of test-takers had scored 89 or above. The majority of those in the top-scoring group were white; only 11 percent were black.
The city’s firefighter applicant test is now pass/fail, Chicago Mayor Richard Daley said.
“For decades we have tried to diversify the Chicago Fire Department,” Daley said. “But at every turn, like most cities, we have been met with legal challenges from both sides. Still, this administration remains committed to ensuring that the department more reflects the racial makeup of the city.”
People are supposed to sue within 300 days in an employment action, and Chicago claimed that clock started ticking when it announced how the test scores would be used in January 1996. The first lawsuit wasn’t filed until 430 days after the test results were announced.
The plaintiffs argued there was a new act of discrimination whenever the scores were used in hiring firefighter trainees between May 1996 and October 2001.
“Today, the Supreme Court affirmed that jobseekers should not be denied justice based on a technicality,” said John Payton, president of the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund Inc., who argued the case. “This victory goes well beyond the immediate results in Chicago. It should ensure that no other fire department or employer uses a discriminatory test, and LDF will go the extra mile to make sure that they do not.”
A U.S. District judge had agreed with the plaintiffs and ordered the city to hire 132 randomly selected black applicants who scored above 64. The court also ordered the city to count up the back pay and divide it among the rest of the applicants. But the 7th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals overturned that decision.
City officials say they would have to hire about 111 applicants because a statute of limitations means one pool of applicants is no longer included. The city also has since hired others who were originally told they wouldn’t get the chance to be firefighters.
Georges also said an age restriction won’t be in place for those who might be hired because there wasn’t one when the test was administered. Georges said applicants, who may now be in their 40s, would still have to attend the fire academy.
Gerald
yo
9:39amDjWillieShakes
whats poppin boss
9:39amGerald
i got this joint where i went in on the 40 people shot in 50 hours, bro!
9:40amDjWillieShakes
send it thru, dont talk about it, be about it!!!
9:40amGerald
lol
Killer Season (Prod. By Kev Brown) <<<<<<<<
9:42amDjWillieShakes
can i post it on my blog?
9:42amGerald
oh yeah of course!
Please don’t tell me that this is a preview of what’s yet to come this summer. The good guy upstairs blesses us with a lil sunshine and we don’t know how to act. SMH!!!
April 2, 2010 (CHICAGO) (WLS) — Violence has erupted in Chicago, and police say they are mobilizing to try to contain it. More than 40 people have been shot in just over two days. Four of those people died.
The shootings began late Thursday night and stretched into Friday evening.
“Between March 31st and 2 a.m. this morning — in 50 hours– 41 people have been shot in 31 incidents, including four homicides,” Chicago police Supt. Jody Weis said during a news conference Friday.
… Continue Reading
White House social secretary Desiree Rogers, a friend of President Obama’s from Chicago, is leaving her job to return to the private sector, the White House said Friday.
Rogers’s tenure as the top party and events planner for the administration was marred by the Salahi gate-crashing incident, in which a Virginia couple managed to enter the White House grounds during Obama’s first state dinner in November.
Jacked via: the washpo
Check out this amazing track by Chi-Town’s Mick Luter!
Knowledge is power,
and ignorance is bliss.
It’s the wisdom that shines through the visions in the mist.
The main challenge
is to maintain the balance,
between your soul and the body
the control; it’s the science
The Rhymesayers’ Psalm One is one of hip-hop’s most talented MCs. Just ask Invincible!! Check out her page here for free downloads and tour schedule!
Yesterday, in an act of protest, students living in Chicago’s Gardens neighborhood who attend Fenger High (the high school that slain teenager Darrion Alberts atteneded) stayed home from school. With the support of their parents, the teenagers are protesting conditions by staying home and boycotting the violence they have to face to get an education. More after the jump.
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