On May 19, 1992, white male police officers filed a lawsuit against the Illinois State Police (ISP) and Illinois in the United States District Court for the Northern District of Illinois. The plaintiffs alleged that the defendants had violated Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, 42 U.S.C. § 2000e, and the Equal Protection clause of the Fourteenth Amendment, contending that racial quotas and different qualifications for the same jobs constituted reverse discrimination. The plaintiffs sought an injunction allowing white males who had had the same or higher scores as minorities but been not been hired to continue with the application process.

Under the affirmative action program which the plaintiffs sought to change, job applicants were divided into categories and recorded separately, with different lists for white males, black males, other male minorities, and females. White male applicants had to achieve a higher score on their qualification tests in order to be hired.

On May 6, 1993, the court (Judge Harry D. Leinenweber) granted the plaintiffs' motion for class certification. The class consisted of all white male applicants for hire with the Illinois State Police from 1975 to 1993 who were eliminated from contention or whose hire date was delayed.

On September 30, 1997, the court (Judge Leinenweber) found in favor of the class on the Title VII hiring claim and in favor of some of the plaintiffs on their individual promotional claims. Between that ruling and April 23, 1998 the court issued various remedies. The class was awarded injunctive relief requiring the ISP to notify all members that they did not have to take the entrance exam but would be considered to have passed. Injunctive relief was granted to individual officers in the form of promotions. Finally, monetary damages for back pay and emotional distress were awarded to various plaintiffs totaling roughly $200,000.

A number of individual plaintiffs appealed to the Seventh Circuit and the case proceeded as Bishop v. Gainer. On December 5, 2001 the Court of Appeals (Judge Coffey, Judge Kanne, and Judge Evans) affirmed the district court with minor modifications. The case ended on May 20, 2002 when the Supreme Court denied the petition for a writ of certiorari.

Michael Perry - 07/11/2010


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