On Monday, February 22^nd, the United States Supreme Court heard oral arguments in a case in which it will determine whether African-American job applicants to the City of Chicago’s Fire Department are time-barred from pursuing a discrimination action over the results of a promotional examination that took place in 1995. 

Under Title VII, a potential plaintiff is required to file a Charge of Discrimination with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) within 180 or 300 days (depending on the state) of the discriminatory act.  In Illinois, the time restriction is 300 days. 

In Lewis v. City of Chicago, a group of African-American applicants filed suit over the results of a promotional examination that took place in 1995 that they alleged had a disparate impact on them.  Instead of designating anyone scoring above 65 — the passing grade — as “qualified,” the Department adopted a second benchmark of 89 and decided to hire only from this “well qualified” category.  The Department was not able to show that doing so produced firefighters who performed appreciably better.  However, the higher benchmark meant that white applicants were five times more likely than African-Americans to move on to the next stage of the hiring process.  As a consequence, the federal district court ruled in favor of the applicants.

On appeal, the Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit reversed, holding that the 300-day time period to file a Charge with the EEOC began to run when the allegedly disparate results were announced, not when the hiring decisions were made.  The first applicant filed a Charge within 300 days of when the hiring decisions were made, but more than 300 days after the results were announced.  Thus, the appeals court found that the applicants were time-barred from pursuing a discriminatory suit. 

Some are comparing this case to Ledbetter v. Goodyear Tire & Rubber Co., in which the Supreme Court, in a widely criticized ruling, threw out a female supervisor’s pay-discrimination claim, on the ground that she did not complain in time, only to have the ruling later reversed by Congressional amendment. 

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