A recent opinion by the Supreme Court clarified the time limit for bringing workplace race discrimination claims based on a disparate-impact theory of discrimination. In a unanimous opinion issued on May 24, 2010 in Lewis v. City of Chicago, the Court held that African-Americans who had taken the exam to become Chicago firefighters and earned scores in the ???qualified??? range, but not the ???well qualified??? range brought a timely disparate-impact claim because their claim was within the deadline of when the City applied those classifications, even if it would have been time-barred as to when the City first established the classification.
The Court highlighted that Title VII prohibits employers from using a particular employment practice that causes a disparate impact on the basis of race, color, religion, sex or national origin. The Court found that the City of Chicago had used the classifications from its 1995 firefighter exam each time that it selected applicants to advance from the eligibility list, which it did multiple times during the subsequent years. When it ???used??? the list, the City committed a new discriminatory act. Because the plaintiff class filed discrimination charges with the EEOC within 300 days after one such unlawful practice occurred, it was not time-barred under the Title VII requirements for a timely complaint.
The opinion noted that the effect of this opinion could allow for workplace race discrimination lawsuits challenging employment practices that had been in place for years, during which time the employer???s evidence of the business necessity behind the challenged policy might become diluted. Nevertheless, the Court found this to be the meaning intended under the disparate-impact section of Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 in 42 U.S.C. ??2000e-2(k)(1)(A)(i).
