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Last Updated August 10, 2000

Clinton Urges Law Profession to
Promote Quotas and Preferences!

July 20, 1999 -- [Washington]   In one of his most cynical, lame-duck race-initiatives to date, Bill Clinton today twisted the arm of the entire legal profession to support racial quotas and preferences! 

          Clinton trotted out all of his favorite minority hires and advocates, including Janet Reno, Bill Lann Lee, Chris Edley, and Secretary of Transportation Slater.  (He also used the occasion to press for Senate validation of his illegal appointment of Bill Lann Lee to the Dept. of Justice Office of Civil Rights.)

          He called upon the entire legal profession to specifically provide special treatment and preference to minorities and women, both in hiring and in providing pro bono services. 

          Incredibly, Clinton issued a call for what amounts to a boycott of law firms owned by white males.  He urged clients and law firms alike to use (or subcontract to) more minority-owned and women-owned law firms and fewer white-owned firms.  Can you imagine the hue and cry if he issued such a racist, call for a boycott of minority-owned firms?

          For the complete, unedited speech from the White House Press Office, See Official Transcript.

          Clinton to Pitch Quotas to ABA Convention Aug. 9, 1999:  Clinton is expected to preach his new "legal profession quotas" at the annual ABA convention in Atlanta this August.  With one of America's most militantly pro-quota cities as his backdrop, Clinton will be be able to lobby the 10,000 lawyers who are expected to attend. 

          Atlanta is a fine venue for Clinton's lawyer-race-discrimination initiative:  Atlanta Mayor Bill Campbell has publicly vowed to "do whatever it takes" to resist court decisions and lawsuits against racial quotas in Atlanta's contracting and employment.

          Atlanta's official quota policy is to exclude white-owned businesses from a minimum of 35 percent of city contracts.   The set-aside program is rife with corruption; both minority and white business owners here acknowledge that Atlanta's set-aside program is nothing more than a patronage system under which a high percentage of the "set-aside" business goes to a small handful of wealthy minority businesses.

          Bill Clinton should feel right at home in Atlanta.

Similar/Related:  Clinton urges lawyers fight racism (07/20/99 - dead link)
          "President Clinton evoked the social idealism of his youth Tuesday as he renewed an activist challenge to America's lawyers that was first voiced by Clinton's political hero, John F. Kennedy, three decades ago.  Lawyers, now as then, can help minorities and the poor benefit more from American democracy and prosperity, Clinton said at a White House gathering patterned after Kennedy's 1963 civil rights challenge to the legal profession. "The struggle for one America today is more complex than it was 36 years ago, more subtle than it seemed to us that it would be back then,'' Clinton said. He announced a series of commitments aimed at promoting opportunities for minorities in the legal profession, and said he also wants to bolster minorities' faith in the legal system. The commitments were worked out among the White House, Justice Department, bar associations, law schools and private sector attorneys over the past year. ... Under the commitments announced Tuesday:

- The American Bar Association will expand programs for corporations to hire more minority law firms, encourage more lawyers to provide free legal services to the poor and provide financial and mentoring assistance to minority law students.

- The American Corporate Counsel Association will promote corporate "pro bono,'' or free, services and provide resources so that corporate counsels can implement diversity and pro bono services on the local level.

- Some leading law firms will pledge that lawyers will spend 50 hours per year, or 3 percent of billable time, performing pro bono services for nonwhites or working in disadvantaged neighborhoods.

- The American Association of Law Schools will promote lessons in racial justice and public service and encourage students to volunteer in minority communities." (Associated Press, via FoxNews, 07/20/99 by Anne Gearan)
[former link **http://www.foxnews.com/js_index.sml?content=/news/wires2/0720/n_ap_0720_275.sml]
[Same AP story at:  http://www.phillynews.com/inquirer/99/Jul/21/national/LAWYER21.htm ]
[Similar at: http://www.lawnewsnetwork.com/stories/A3582-1999Jul19.html ]

Similar/Related:  Clinton Challenges Lawyers To Speed Race Diversity (07/20/99 - dead link)
          "President Clinton, recalling the civil rights steps President John F. Kennedy took 36 years ago, challenged America's legal community Tuesday to ensure greater racial diversity within its ranks.  At a White House East Room event, Clinton announced a number of organizations, including the American Bar Association, had agreed to take steps to improve diversity in a profession dominated by whites.  A major ABA initiative will involve lawyers, academics, law firms and bar associations throughout the country in work such as providing financial assistance to law students and mentoring students and young lawyers. ... "Just as your predecessors, with the Constitution as their shield, stared down the sheriffs of segregation, you must step forward to dismantle our time's most stubborn obstacles to equal justice:  poverty, unemployment, and, yes, continuing discrimination,'' Clinton told representatives from the legal community at the event and members of his race advisory board. ...

          "Now, he said, the struggle for a racially harmonious America is more complex than it was in 1963, when the clear enemy was segregation and hatred.  Now it is expanding opportunity for all people regardless of color." (FoxNews 07/20/99)
[former link **http://www.foxnews.com/js_index.sml?content=/news/wires2/0720/n_rt_0720_135.sml]

          Be sure to also see the Official Transcript of Clinton's remarks.

Counterpoint:  Black Businesses Do NOT Hire Black Law Firms!  (07/19/99)
          "As black corporate America gets richer, black law firms are standing outside with their noses pressed against the windowpane.  Black lawyers, particularly members of the National Bar Association's commercial law division, say there is, at the very least, a bit of irony in the fact that many of the black entrepreneurs who have benefited from civil rights laws, federal minority business development programs and the steady patronage of African-American consumers haven't done more to send business their way. Black-owned companies are prospering, says Black Enterprise magazine, which publishes annual rankings by sales of the leading companies that are at least 51% black-owned.

          "The National Law Journal asked the top 25 corporations on the magazine's 1999 Industrial/Service 100 (the B.E. 100) to name the law firms that they used most often in the past 12 months and then called the firms with follow-up questions. The findings confirm what lawyers at black-owned firms say they've been grousing about in private circles for some time: White males at majority law firms are getting the bulk of the business from black companies.

          "Eleven of the top 25 black-owned companies send all or most of their legal work to white lawyers at some of the biggest firms in the country, such as Chicago's Winston & Strawn, Philadelphia's Schnader Harrison Segal & Lewis L.L.P. and Baltimore's Venerable, Baetjer and Howard L.L.P. Five of the top 25 rely exclusively on a black partner at a white law firm. Only two send all or the bulk of their matters to black-owned law firms. "A number of African-American-owned companies have been built in response to the push for affirmative action," says Mr. Pope, "yet they have not practiced affirmative action in their own business dealings. If those firms are not allotting some business to African-American law firms...then they're doing a disservice to the community and themselves.""   (The National Law Journal, 07/19/99 by Arthur S. Hayes)
[link http://www.lawnewsnet.com/stories/A3485-1999Jul16.html ]

Legal Resources on the Internet:  Part I
         NEW! Adversity.Net (Legal Help, this site):  Adversity.Net's own list of "legal help / resources" -- If you have been a victim of reverse discrimination, and you are looking for a law firm to represent you, this Web page is for you!

Legal Resources on the Internet:  Part II
          LSU Dept. of Political Science maintains this comprehensive list of links to legal citations, landmark decisions, human rights cases, and a few links dealing with reverse discrimination.

Supreme Court:  Next President (2000) Can Replace 3 Conservative Justices (Pay Site - 07/19/99)
          [Three Conservative High Court Justices are likely to retire during the next few years, which gives the next President of the United States an extraordinary opportunity to shape the High Court.   This article argues that this is reason enough to elect Texas Governor George W. Bush, the favored Republican and anti-preferences candidate for President 2000.  Here is what Wall Street Journal writer Paul A. Gigot writes...]

          " ... The Supreme Court justices can't endorse the Texas governor [George W. Bush for President], but they don't have to.  Their advancing ages (74, 79 and 69) are endorsement enough.  That all three may retire in the next president's term is one of the most crucial, if least advertised, factors in Mr. Bush's so far downhill roll to the GOP nomination.  This is also the paradox of Mr. Bush's surprisingly large support on the right. Mr. Smith said this week he's quitting the GOP because he thinks it has abandoned principle for pragmatism.

          "But it's precisely because of principle that so many conservatives have become pragmatic this year. They feel the stakes are so large in 2000 that they can't afford to lose.  ... That's especially true among the social and judicial conservatives who care about the Supreme Court.  One of them is Alex Acosta, who is about to embark on a 35-city tour for the Federalist Society to advertise what's at stake.  'My sincere belief is that judicial selection will be the next president's most lasting legacy,' he says.  One of his themes will be that eight years of Clinton appointments will have put the entire federal bench in precarious ideological balance.  On the Supreme Court, conservatives hold a mere 5-4 majority on a host of culture-war questions.  Replace Chief Justice Rehnquist with any Al Gore appointee and the 1995 Adarand case barring racial set-asides will be overturned. And forget about further progress in limiting federal power over states, or expanding property rights and religious liberties. ... Mr. Acosta helped write the judicial chapter in Dan Quayle's new policy book but has since signed on with the Texan. "I can't think of anyone who's not backing Bush" on the legal right, he says. 

          "Libertarian legal activist Clint Bolick, who was recruited by Steve Forbes, has also joined the Bush policy team.   Even Ward Connerly endorsed Mr. Bush this month, though Mr. Bush won't return the favor by endorsing Mr. Connerly's referendums to ban racial preferences.  Mr. Connerly says he hopes Mr. Bush will come around eventually and use 'the tremendous goodwill' he's building up among minorities to change the quota debate.  And of course make the right judicial picks. ... 'Except for Souter, there is nothing that [former president George Bush, Sr.] did better than judges,' says Mr. Bolick.   Justice Clarence Thomas was a home run and President Bush's lower court picks were as conservative as the Gipper's.  On the other hand, a May 10 article in 'Texas Lawyer' on George W.'s Texas appointees certainly leaves room for doubt.  The usually critical publication praises his judicial choices as 'political moderates' whose strength is 'character' not 'ideology.'  This is what liberals like to say about Mr. Souter. ... 'Conservatives recognize that a lot of their gains in the last 20 years have come in the courts,' says Mr. Bolick. ...

          "Alas for Bob Smith, this is the real reason so many conservatives have adopted football owner Al Davis' motto--'Just win, baby.'" (Wall Street Journal posted 07/19/99 by Paul A. Gigot)
[pay site link:  http://interactive.wsj.com/articles/SB93207747175472034.htm ]

Supreme Court:  Ruling is Mixed Bag for Punitives in Discrimination Cases (06/23/99 - dead link)
          WASHINGTON -- "A Supreme Court ruling Tuesday in an important civil rights case made it unlikely that many employees who bring successful discrimination suits against their employers will be able to collect punitive damages, a remedy that Congress made available for the first time when it amended the Civil Rights Act in 1991.

          "The 5-4 decision held that when a company has made "good-faith efforts" to comply with the civil rights law, it cannot be required to pay punitive damages for the discriminatory actions of managers who violate company policy.

          "The case began as a lawsuit against the American Dental Association by a woman who was passed over for a high-level position in the organization's Washington office in favor of a man with less experience.

          "A jury in U.S. District Court [in Washington, DC] found in 1996 that the plaintiff, Carole Kolstad, had been the victim of intentional sex discrimination and awarded her back pay of $52,718. But the judge would not permit the jury to consider an award of punitive damages, and the case turned into a battle over what circumstances Congress had in mind when it amended Title VII in 1991 and made punitive damages of up to $300,000 available in cases of intentional discrimination in which the employer acted "with malice or with reckless indifference to the federally protected rights of an aggrieved individual."

          "In its 6-5 decision last year, the District of Columbia U.S. Court of Appeals held that punitive damages were available only when the employer's behavior was particularly "egregious" -- a word that did not appear in the statute and which, the dissenting judges objected, reflected an effort by the majority to limit the law by effectively rewriting it.

          "Ms. Kolstad's Supreme Court appeal, Kolstad v. American Dental Association, No. 98-208, focused entirely on the "egregious conduct" standard -- an argument that she in fact won Tuesday. Seven justices, all except Chief Justice William H. Rehnquist and Justice Clarence Thomas, agreed that the law did not make egregious conduct a prerequisite to punitive damages." (New York Times, 06/23/99, by Linda Greenhouse)
[former link **http://www.nytimes.com/library/politics/scotus/articles/062399job-discrim.html]

What is Your Job-Bias Liability?   (02/08/99 - dead link)
          "Companies can be totally committed to equal opportunity and still get blindsided by a plaintiff's attorney with new strategies and a nose for big bucks.

          "So what exactly has changed? First, ponder the standard-model antidiscrimination suit that employers dealt with in the first quarter-century after the 1964 Civil Rights Act was passed. It typically involved job applicants who had been turned down and claimed they were victims of hiring procedures with an adverse impact on racial minorities or women. They often came into court with statistics designed to prove this impact, and often prevailed even when the employer clearly had no intention of discriminating; what mattered was the effect, not the intent. Such cases were often supported, or initiated, by the federal Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. They were weighed by federal judges, not juries. Companies found guilty of discrimination were liable for back-pay awards, but not for punitive damages.

          "Several events have combined to transform this familiar scenario. One was the Civil Rights Act of 1991. Reading over the contemporaneous arguments about this legislation, one is struck today by how just about everybody misjudged its main effects. The Bush Administration, which supported the act, pointed to various features that worked against racial quotas in hiring—particularly the law's ban on "race-norming" in employment tests. (Race-norming adds bonus points to the scores of minority job applicants.) The Democratic Congress that passed the law liked it because it reversed Supreme Court decisions that had restricted affirmative action."  (Forbes, 02/08/99, by Dan Seligman)
[former link **http://www.forbes.com/forbes/99/0208/6303090a.htm]

-----------------------------
Misc. Legal Articles and Analyses

Avowed Racist Barred from Practicing Law (02/10/99 - dead link)
          "All it takes is a phone call to find out where Matthew Hale stands. "You have reached the most dynamic pro-white organization on planet Earth," says the greeting on his answering machine, before launching into a 10-minute racist and anti-Semitic diatribe condemning the idea of "the equality of the races" as "patently absurd."

          "In large part to foster and spread these opinions, Hale, 27, from East Peoria, wants to be a lawyer. "I want to be an advocate for white people in the court room," said Hale, who heads a white-supremacist organization called the World Church of the Creator. "I can't name one attorney, for example, who is an open racist, and that's what I am."

          "But because he makes no bones about his views and goals, Hale, who has completed law school and passed the state bar, has been denied a license to practice law in Illinois by a state panel that evaluates the character and fitness of prospective lawyers.  (NY Times, 02/10/99, by Pam Belluck)
[former link **http://www.nytimes.com/yr/mo/day/news/national/racist-law-grad.html]

Sharon Taxman:   Background and Analysis (dead link)
          The NJ school board fired her for being white.  The Supreme Court was set to decide in her favor.  Here is some background on the town (Piscataway, NJ), and the white and black teacher.
[former link **http://www.psc.lsa.umich.edu/~drharris/piscataway.html]

Affirmative Action - Current Events - Law - 11/10/97
          Brief history of legal success of Calif. Prop. 209.  Review of recent legal decisions upholding legality and constitutionality of California's Proposition 209...

Universalism, Justice and Identity Politics: From Political Correctness to Constitutional Law
          James Boyle © 1997 "The clerks have adopted political passions." This article takes the unsatisfying debates over political correctness as the starting point for a discussion of a set of fundamental philosophical and political assumptions about life, justice and knowledge.

Jury Nullification:  Judge Gives Felon a "Pass" for Being Black!  (05/07/99 - dead link)
          (By Clint Bolick, litigation director at the Institute for Justice in Washington, DC) -- "When convicted felon Alexander Leviner decided to go on a joy ride and fire shots into the air, he should have expected the law to come down hard on him. Federal sentencing guidelines provide a maximum six-year sentence for a felon possessing a firearm.

          "But Leviner got lucky: The book the judge threw at him was filled not with law but sociological statistics. Leviner was sentenced to a mere 30 months - not because of any doubt of his guilt or allegations of police improprieties, but because blacks in general are more likely to be stopped for traffic offenses.

          "With this decision by a Boston federal judge appointed by President Clinton, Nancy Gertner, race-based affirmative action has seeped into criminal law.

          "Whatever the costs of racial preferences in other areas, the cost of introducing them into our criminal justice system are intolerable.

          "The facts of Levener's case are simple. After reports that shots had been fired, police observed a speeding car leaving the area without headlights. After stopping it and finding that the registration did not match the vehicle, the police searched the passengers, including Leviner, and found a gun, 14 rounds of ammunition, and a shell casing. Leviner pleaded guilty of being a felon in possession of a firearm. 

          "By the time of sentencing, Leviner had already been convicted of two drug-related felonies and four minor traffic and drug offenses. Federal sentencing guidelines provide sentencing formulas that direct judges to take past offenses into account.

          "But Gertner discounted Leviner's past offenses, reducing Leviner's sentence by more than half, based on "(s)tudies from a number of scholars" that "have focused on the fact that African American motorists are stopped and prosecuted for traffic stops, more than any other citizens." No evidence was presented that race was a factor in this case, or in any of Leviner's previous offenses.

          "What makes this "affirmative action" is that Leviner received a break not because of any claim relating to him as an individual, but because of his racial statistics. That concept is alien to criminal law, which by definition focuses on the culpability of individual defendants.

          "Gertner's view of systemic racism echoes a 1996 ruling by another federal judge appointed by Clinton, Harold Baer, who suppressed evidence from a police narcotics search on grounds that it should not raise suspicion when inner-city residents flee from police. Baer subsequently overturned his own decision in the face of a strong public outcry.

          "On a broader scale, groups like the NAACP Legal Defense Fund are trying to abolish capital punishment on the basis of racial statistics, even though plentiful opportunities already exist to raise claims of racial bias in individual cases.

          "Importing affirmative action into criminal law is toxic.  Inevitably, it means that people who are guilty of crimes will not pay the full cost of their crimes, to the detriment of everyone but most particularly inner-city minorities, who are disproportionately victimized by crime.

          "It is true that racial "disparities" exist in police stops, arrests and convictions. Reports suggest that one of every three young black male adults is in jail or on probation (in the nation's capital, the figure is one in two).

          "But the disparities are even greater for criminal victimization: blacks are 6.4 times more likely than whites to die by homicide. Indeed, homicide has become the leading cause of death among young black males.

          "True affirmative action requires stricter, not more lenient, law enforcement in minority communities.  As in other contexts such as employment and education, racial preferences in the criminal justice system treat symptoms rather than underlying problems. Just as adding points to students' test scores in the college admissions process does nothing to remedy problems in the K-12 education system, absolving criminals of the full consequences of their lawless behavior does not redress real problems in the criminal justice system.

          "Indeed, it further injures the very racial groups who need effective law enforcement the most. Real solutions abound. In my recent book, "Transformation," I urge devolving law-enforcement to the neighborhood level. That would deliver resources and authority to those who have the greatest stake in the community, reducing the likelihood of abuses and fostering respect for the rule of law.  Likewise, we should prohibit the use of racial profiles by police.

          "And if the federal sentencing guidelines are too rigid and arbitrary, we should change them.  But what our society must never tolerate are courts that apply principles of sociology rather than the rule of law.  For when they do, we really have no law - or freedom - at all.

(Clint Bolick is litigation director at the Institute for Justice in Washington and author of
"Transformation: The Promise and Politics of Empowerment" (ICS Press).
[former link **http://www2.nando.net/noframes/story/0,2107,45954-74153-533844-0,00.html]

Jury Nullification:  Jurors Use Racial Sympathy Instead of Points of Law!  (02/08/99 - dead)
          "In courthouses across the country, an unprecedented level of juror activism is taking hold, ignited by a movement of people who are turning their back on the evidence they hear at trial and instead using the jury box as a bold form of civil protest.

          "Whether they are African Americans who believe the system is stacked against them, libertarians who abhor the overbearing hand of government or someone else altogether, these jurors are choosing to ignore a judge's instructions to punish those who break the law because they don't like what it says or how it is being applied to a particular defendant.

          "In the recent case against former agriculture secretary Mike Espy, accused of accepting illegal gratuities, independent counsel Donald C. Smaltz asked the judge to specifically instruct jurors not to consider the fact that Espy is African American. Smaltz said he was making the request because Espy's lawyer suggested to jurors that Espy was prosecuted because he is black. Racial arguments, Smaltz said, are "an attempt to encourage the jury to acquit the defendant regardless" of his guilt. Smaltz was turned down, but the daring strategy comes as fresh evidence that prosecutors increasingly believe they need to head off social vindication in the jury box.

          "(Espy was eventually acquitted in December of all charges by a jury of 11 blacks and one white, and all of the jurors questioned afterward said it was not race that led to their verdict but their belief that Smaltz's corruption charges were overblown.)"  Excellent Washington Post article, includes lots of other famous 'nullification' cases, including O.J. Simpson's trial.  (Washington Post, 02/08/99, page A1, by Joan Biskupic)
[former link *http://washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/WPlate/1999-02/08/076l-020899-idx.html]

Canada (Toronto):  Jurors can be eliminated for bias against minorities (dead link)
          "Three accused drug traffickers jailed for life in a $145-million heroin seizure have won new trials because a judge would not allow jurors to be screened for possible bias against Asians, the Court of Appeal has ruled. Yesterday's decision extends the existing Parks screening process for juror prejudice involving black defendants to cover all visible minorities."   (Toronto Sun 12-31-98)
[former link http://www.canoe.ca/TorontoNews/ts.ts-12-31-0016.html]

Federal Court, 3rd Circuit:  Anti-Quota Judge Higginbotham, Jr. Dead at 70 (12/15/98 - dead link)
          "Former federal judge A. Leon Higginbotham Jr., 70, a giant of a jurist and scholar whose court rulings and scholarly writings and whole life helped to discredit what he called "the jurisprudence of race," died yesterday at Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston after a massive stroke."  (Philadelphia Inquirer 12-15-98)
[former link *http://www.phillynews.com:80/inquirer/98/Dec/15/front_page/HIGG15.htm]

(U.S. Supreme Court):  Minorities and Preferences Supporters Avoid High Court (02/08/99)
          "The Supreme Court used to be the legal haven of choice for the civil rights movement, the place to go for a sympathetic hearing and strengthened protections for minorities.  No more. For the second time in 15 months, traditional civil rights groups last week worked behind the scenes to keep a key affirmative action case away from the nation's highest court, for fear of an adverse ruling.

          "The Boston School Board, at the urging of civil rights groups, decided not to appeal a lower court ruling against an admission policy that boosted minority enrollment at its renowned Boston Latin School.

          " 'There is too much at stake to risk pulling down affirmative action nationwide at the hands of a closely divided court,'  says Ted Shaw of the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund [a Bill Lann Lee protege].

          "In November 1997, Shaw and other civil rights leaders also persuaded the Piscataway, N.J., school board to yank from the Supreme Court's docket a case involving the layoff of a white teacher that left a black teacher with equal seniority in place to promote diversity.

          " 'They're playing duck and run with the diversity issue, because they know they're on constitutional thin ice,'   says Clint Bolick of the Institute for Justice, which opposes [race-based preferences].  'The last thing they want is a Supreme Court ruling on the issue.' "  (USA Today, 02/08/99, by Tony Mauro)
[link http://www.usatoday.com/news/court/nscot966.htm ]

(U.S. Supreme Court):  High Court Refuses Blacks' Redlining Suit (dead link) (01/19/99)
          "The Supreme Court today refused to revive a massive civil rights lawsuit against many of the nation's largest insurance companies filed in behalf of 93,000 homeowners living in predominantly black neighborhoods of St. Louis and Kansas City.  The justices, without comment, left intact [lower court] rulings that threw out the case."

          "The 1996 lawsuit accused insurance companies of discriminatory 'redlining' -- refusing to sell homeowners insurance on equal terms based on the racial composition of their neighborhoods."   Significantly absent from the press coverage of this case is any argument that such neighborhoods might actually represent greater risk, and therefore justify either higher premiums or lower coverage.  For example, my insurance premiums for living in Maryland are significantly lower than if I lived one mile farther south in Washington, DC.   Why is that?  It is because violent crime, vandalism, burglaries, and other property crimes happen at a MUCH higher rate in Washington, DC than they do in Silver Spring, Maryland!  Therefore I pay lower premiums because I represent a lower risk because I live one mile farther north, in Maryland.  [Editor]  (Associated Press via PostNet, 01/19/99, by Richard Carelli)
[former link http://web3.stlnet.com/postnet/news/wires.nsf/StateRegion/D1578677F9F151C0862566FE00582E71]

Massachusetts (Boston):  Judge reduces sentence because defendant is black (dead link)
          U.S. District Judge Nancy Gertner creates her own law.  Citing anecdotal evidence that black men are stopped by police more often than white men, Gertner gave defendant Alexander Leviner a lighter sentence.   U.S. Attorney's office cites this as a dangerous trend of injecting race into the sentencing process. "Leviner was arrested about 3 a.m. on Sept. 14, 1997, after Boston police stopped the car in which he was riding.  Police said they were investigating a report of shots fired near Homestead Street in Roxbury and had stopped the red Nissan because it was driving fast, with its lights off.  Police found a gun on the car floor near where Leviner was sitting along with a spent shell casing and ammunition." (Boston Globe 12/20/98)
[former link *http://www.globe.com/dailyglobe2/354/metro/Judge_ties_sentence_to_race__gives_some_pause+.shtml]

New York (Manhattan):  Frivolous Discrimination Suit Dismissed; Plaintiffs Must Pay! (dead link)
          U.S. District Judge took the unusual action of ordering seven black employees to pay $14,000 in legal fees to the defendant, and their lawyers must pay $20,000.  During and after discovery in their racial discrimination law suit, one by one each of the seven black employees admitted their claims were baseless and dropped their suit.  However, the Judge ruled they and their lawyers must pay back the substantial legal fees incurred by the defendant, Credit Lyonnais, an international investment bank whose North American headquarters are in New York.  (Law News Network 12-11-98)
[former link **http://www.lawnewsnetwork.com/stories/dec/e121198c.html]

Texas (Houston):  District Court Refuses Transit Authority Racial Contracting Quotas!
          Legal Opinion (i.e., kinda dense reading):  United States District Court, Southern District of Texas.  Houston Contractors Association, Plaintiff vs. Metropolitan Transit Authority of Harris County, Defendant.  The Judge overturned the Harris County (Houston) Transit Authority's Racial Set-Aside Contracting Policies.  The Judge wrote "...basing governmental action on race offends the American Constitution."   (Houston Chronicle 11/14/97)

END Legal News OLDER Stories