U.S. Tells L.A. to End Racial Quotas for Police, Fire Jobs

The Justice Department disclosed Tuesday that it has informed the Los Angeles Fire and Police departments and 49 other state and local agencies that court-approved affirmative action plans they have been following should be revised to bar the use of racial employment quotas.

In letters to the agencies, the department cited a Supreme Court ruling last June in a case involving firefighters in Memphis, Tenn., that it says forbids courts from ordering quotas or giving preferential treatment to job seekers who have not been the actual victims of racial discrimination.

Earlier this year, the department said it had informed numerous state and local jurisdictions that it believed that consent decrees and other court orders to which they and the federal government were parties should be modified. But officials refused to name the localities or to reveal any replies they received.

In response to requests under the Freedom of Information Act, the department Tuesday issued a list of 51 jurisdictions it had urged go back to court with it to bring existing orders into compliance with the June ruling. In addition to the Los Angeles departments, the list included the city and county of San Diego and the San Francisco Police Department.

Other major cities on the list are Baltimore, Boston, Buffalo, Chicago, Cincinnati, Indianapolis, Miami, Milwaukee, Philadelphia and St. Louis.

The Supreme Court ruling June 12 barred courts from ordering cities to lay off more senior workers to save the jobs of minority employees with less seniority. The justices held that federal civil rights laws protect racially neutral seniority systems and that white employees could not be denied seniority rights where minority employees had not proved they had personally been the victims of discrimination. In other cases since, some federal courts have interpreted the ruling narrowly and approved the use of quotas or numerical goals that give preferential consideration to minorities and women.

But the Reagan Administration view, as presented by Justice Department officials, is that the ruling applies not just to seniority systems but to court-decreed preferential treatment in hiring and promotion as well.

The department on Tuesday issued what it said was a sample letter among those sent to the 51 jurisdictions earlier this year by William Bradford Reynolds, assistant attorney general in charge of the civil rights division.

The letter called for the jurisdiction involved to join with the Justice Department to seek changes “to the extent that the (court order) can be read as granting or contemplating preferential treatment to non-victims of discrimination.”

Reynolds’ letter said that the best way to bring existing decrees into conformity with the Supreme Court ruling is to substitute recruitment programs for quotas or goals and couple those programs with “provisions that ensure against discriminatory hiring practices.”

In Los Angeles, the City Council has taken no action on the letter, which Deputy City Atty. Robert Kramer said he received in January.

“I expect they (council members) will take it up within the next two weeks to a month,” Kramer said. “There is no time limit to making up our minds on it. When the council asks for our advice, we will provide it.”

Effect on 3 Decrees

Kramer said three decrees governing the Police and Fire departments’ hiring policies would be affected by any affirmative action modifications.

A 1974 decree, entered into by the Justice Department and the city and approved in federal court, requires the Fire Department to hire 50% of its new recruits every year from the black, Latino and Asian communities until the department’s numbers reflect the populations of those minority groups within the city.

Two 1980 consent decrees, also approved in federal court, govern the Police Department’s affirmative action policies. One requires that 25% of the department’s new recruits be women until females account for 25% of the sworn force. The second requires the department to hire 22.5% of its new recruits every year from the black community and 22.5% from the Latino community until the number of black and Hispanic officers reflects their populations in the Los Angeles metropolitan area.

San Francisco Status

In San Francisco, Deputy City Atty. Michael Killelea said the Memphis decision does not apply to the consent decrees established by the city and county in 1979. Those agreements, which Killelea said were reached with the cooperation of the Justice Department, called for affirmative action goals to hire 50% racial and ethnic minority and 20% women. He said the decrees are legally binding unless the mayor or the Board of Supervisors decided otherwise.

In San Diego, city and county officials were perplexed about the Justice Department action. “We have not received any communication from the Department of Justice,” Assistant City Manager Sue Williams said. The director of the Equal Opportunity Management Office for San Diego County, Victor Nieto, also said he was unaware of the letter.

Times staff writers Andy Furillo in Los Angeles, Dan Morain in San Francisco and Keay Davidson in San Diego contributed to this story.