On February 10, 2014, the United States filed this lawsuit in the United States District Court for the District of Rhode Island under 42 U.S.C. § 2000e-6 ("Title VII"). The United States (the Employment Litigation Section of the Department of Justice Civil Rights Division) brought suit against the Rhode Island Department of Corrections seeking an injunction to prevent the defendant from engaging in future discrimination and back-pay damages to “make whole” those who had been harmed by the alleged discriminatory hiring.
Factually, the complaint alleged that since 2000, the Rhode Island Department of Corrections had used separate written and video examinations in their screening and selection of applicants for entry-level correctional officer positions. The written examination and video examination were conducted on the same day, and only applicants who passed both were eligible for further consideration in the hiring process. Passing applications were then placed on a list in a descending-rank order based on their examination scores. The plaintiff alleged that this process had a statistically-significant, discriminatory impact on African-American and Hispanic applicants which gave rise to a pattern or practice of unintentional racial discrimination in violation of Title VII.
On April 25, 2014, the defendant filed a motion to dismiss for failure to state a claim, arguing that the Attorney General failed to comply with the procedural prerequisites set out in Title VII or bring the lawsuit within the time period required to obtain back pay. On January 9, 2015, Chief Judge William E. Smith denied the defendant’s motion and the case proceeded to discovery. 81 F. Supp. 3d 182.
After several years of discovery, (see, e.g., 2016 WL 4742265), the parties participated in a settlement conference on March 31, 2017. On January 26, 2018, the parties filed a joint motion for final approval of the proposed settlement agreement which the assigned Magistrate Judge Lincoln A. Almond recommended Chief Judge Smith adopt. Despite an objection from a prospective claimant, Chief Judge Smith approved the settlement agreement on May 11, 2018. 2018 WL 217557. The settlement agreement required Rhode Island to stop using the written and video examination, create a new selection device without a racially disparate impact, hire up to thirty-seven prospective claimants with retroactive seniority benefits, and provide $450,000 in monetary relief to be distributed pro rata.
On May 13, 2018, one complainant filed an appeal of the settlement with U.S. Court of Appeals for the First Circuit. All proceedings in the district court were stayed pending the appeal. On July 3, 2018, appellants filed a motion to dismiss. Noting that the appellant was not a party to the suit and not bound by the agreement, the Court concluded it lacked jurisdiction to hear the appeal and granted the motion to dismiss. The case is now closed.
Claire Lally - 10/21/2014
Hope Brinn - 12/22/2018
compress summary
