Public Interest Briefs
Public Interest Briefs track CLIPI’s filings, funding, coalition wins, showing how each step drives policy change and nurtures advocates.
On February 18th, Center attorneys settled a class action lawsuit brought against the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power that will eliminate the Department's discriminatory hiring practices and open the way for the hiring of hundreds of blacks and Mexican-Americans for the Department’s skilled craft jobs. The terms of the settlement were approved by the Los Angeles City Council, the Board of Water and Power Commissioners, and the Los Angeles Civil Service Commission. It received final court approval on March 21st.
The suit, entitled Dennison v. the City of Los Angeles Department of Water and Power, was first filed in 1973. It challenged the legality of the Department’s written tests used in hiring skilled tradesmen by arguing that the tests were neither job-related nor predictive of job performance. These tests had a discriminatory effect because a greater proportion of minorities failed them than did whites. That lopsided impact was enough to create a presumption of illegality under Title VII of the 1964 Civil Rights Act.
The settlement worked out by the parties will go a long way toward correcting the inequities of the past years. It provides that every one of the approximately 2,500 black and Mexican-American applicants who had previously taken and failed the test and were still interested in employment with the DWP could apply for and take a new test which the Department will develop. The Department will set the pass/fail cutoff score by having thirty randomly selected skilled tradesmen currently employed with the DWP take the test. The cutoff will be the score of the individual who scores 28th on the test.
The DWP will place those minorities who qualify on a special list and will fill 50% of all vacancies in the DWP skilled trades from that list. The list will be maintained for ten years or until all the qualified persons who had previously been discriminated against are hired–whichever period is shorter.
Finally, the settlement provides for payments of approximately $750,000 over the next seventeen years to black and Mexican-American DWP retirees. Because of the DWP’s past discriminatory activities, these individuals are presently receiving lower pensions than the average white retiree.
Center attorneys estimate that the settlement will bring at least 750 minorities into the DWP’s skilled trades.
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Spring ’77: Center ends hiring bias at DWP, fights Owens Valley water grab, defends broadcast accountability, challenges mail surveillance, and presses L.A. to fund air-quality efforts.
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