Norton to Introduce Bill to Return Job Discrimination Statute to Its Intended Meaning (6/29/09)
Norton, a Former EEOC Chair, to Introduce Bill to Return Job Discrimination Statute to Its Intended Meaning Following New Haven Firefighters Decision
June 29, 2009
WASHINGTON, DC - Congresswoman Eleanor Holmes Norton (D-DC), a former chair of the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC), said today that when Congress returns, she will introduce a bill to overturn the Supreme Court's decision today in the New Haven, Conn., firefighter case, Ricci v. DeStefano.
The Congresswoman's statement is as follows:
"An activist majority, once again, has gone out of its way to thwart yet another mandate that Congress and the courts have insisted was necessary to break the hold of generations of discrimination against minorities and women. Today's decision puts employers between a rock and a very hard place by requiring the city of New Haven to promote candidates despite strong evidence that the underlying qualifying test has a grossly disparate impact on and discriminates against minority candidates. Congress, in writing Title VII of the 1964 Civil Rights Act, could not have been more clear that the policy of the statute is to encourage employers to correct their own practices and thereby to avoid, not invite, litigation. The Supreme Court today rewrote this express mandate of the Congress that the courts have long honored. Instead, this Court invites employers to stare discrimination in the face and keep walking, to their peril. Consequently, Congress has no recourse except to do as we did in the Ledbettercase and return the statute to its intended meaning. I will begin this process by introducing a bill to accomplish this end when Congress returns."