96 Race Bias Claims Have Been Dismissed Since Court’s June Ruling on Rights Law

The Supreme Court decision last June that sharply restricted the reach of a major civil rights law has resulted in the dismissal of 96 race discrimination claims, nearly one every business day since the opinion was issued, a study released Sunday by a civil rights group says.

The NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund reviewed court actions between June 15, the date of the Supreme Court’s decision in Patterson vs. McLean Credit Union, and Nov. 1.

Judges, acting on their own or at the request of those being sued, dismissed 96 discrimination claims in 50 cases as a result of the Patterson decision, the study by the National Assn. for the Advancement of Colored People found.

In Patterson, the court said an 1866 civil rights law that prohibits race discrimination in the making of a contract--known as section 1981--”extends only to the formation of a contract but not to problems that may arise later from the conditions of continuing employment.”

The Legal Defense Fund study found that 31 claims of racial discrimination in firing were dismissed as a result of the decision and 22 claims of racial harassment were thrown out.

In addition, judges cited Patterson in dismissing 16 claims alleging that promotions or transfers were denied on the basis of race, eight retaliation claims and six demotion claims.

Seven complaints that did not involve employment discrimination were dismissed along with six miscellaneous complaints involving the workplace.

The study pointed to a case involving an industrial nurse whose supervisor repeatedly made explicit racial and sexual remarks to her, and on two occasions showed her pictures of interracial sexual acts and told her she had been hired to perform them.

The woman’s claim alleging that the harassment violated section 1981 was thrown out by the U.S. 7th Circuit Court of Appeals in Chicago, which concluded that her claim did not relate to “conduct which impairs the right to enforce contract obligations” and therefore had to be dismissed.

Although the court majority in Patterson said section 1981 had to be narrowly interpreted to avoid overlapping with Title VII of the 1964 Civil Rights Act, the study found that a “significant number” of claims dismissed in light of Patterson could not be brought under Title VII because they did not involve job discrimination, which is all that Title VII covers.

Justice Department spokesman David Runkel said he could not comment specifically on the report because a copy had not been provided to the department.

But he said that “a conclusion that these (cases) somehow show some diminishment of equal opportunity or commitment to civil rights could be misleading” since many cases would be covered under Title VII and others could be “resolved at state and local human relations commissions or in other laws which bar discrimination.”

He said the Justice Department also has been monitoring cases to determine the effect of the Supreme Court decision. “The review to date in general terms . . . indicates that there is nothing that has occurred in the lower courts which would lead the department to see a need for any major rewriting of the country’s civil rights law,” he said.

Eric Schnapper, the author of the NAACP study, said: “If the Justice Department said they’ve been reviewing a lot of decisions and they found no evidence that Patterson has any impact, I don’t question the veracity of that comment. It seems to confirm our concern that the Justice Department isn’t reading American court decisions any more but may be reading decisions from the Transvaal.”