Lewis v. City of Chicago
130 S. Ct. 2191 (U.S. 2010)
The city of Chicago put in place a process through which it hired city fire fighters. Initially, all applicants took a written test. For those who scored in the “well qualified” range on that test, the city randomly selected a group to proceed to the second stage of the interview process. Those who scored under a certain number on the test were dropped from consideration. Those who scored between that bottom cut-off score and the “well qualified” score were noted to be “qualified.” Those applicants were placed on a list that made them eligible to be called to the second stage of the process in future years if there were not enough “well qualified” applicants. A group of African American applicants filed a suit (which became a class action) against the city, alleging that this process had a disparate impact on black applicants. The district court ruled for the applicants, ruling that the city had to select 132 class members to hire and that it had to provide back pay to the rest. The Seventh Circuit reversed that decision, holding that the suit was untimely because the applicants failed to file EEOC charges within 300 days after the discriminatory act (the creation of applicant tiers) took place. The Supreme Court reversed the circuit court’s decision, holding that the “discriminatory act” actually took placed each time the tier system was utilized in the hiring process and that a suit challenging such an application is timely so long as it meets each element of a disparate impact claim.