The case involves a test used by the City of Chicago in 1995 to screen firefighter applicants, and where the selection was made if the applicant scored “well qualified.” In 1997, a group of African-American applicants who scored “qualified” filed suit, alleging that this practice had a disparate impact on African-Americans in violation of Title VII of the 1964 Civil Rights Act.
The Seventh Circuit ruled that the suit was untimely because the earliest discrimination charge was filed more than 300 days after the only discriminatory act—sorting the scores into the “well qualified,” “qualified,” and “not qualified” categories. The later hiring decisions, the Seventh Circuit held, were an automatic consequence of the test scores, not new discriminatory acts.
The Supreme Court rejects this interpretation, stating that a “Title VII plaintiff establishes a prima facie claim by showing that the employer ‘uses a particular employment practice that causes a disparate impact’ on one of the prohibited bases.”
“The term ‘employment practice’ clearly encompasses the conduct at issue: exclusion of passing applicants who scored below 89 when selecting those who would advance. The City ‘use[d]’ that practice each time it filled a new class of firefighters, and petitioners allege that doing so caused a disparate impact. It is irrelevant that subsection (k) does not address ‘accrual’ of disparate-impact claims, since the issue here is not when the claims accrued but whether the claims stated a violation. They did,” the Court says. Lewis v. City of Chicago
