End use of race in hiring, police told

A federal judge ordered the Boston Police Department yesterday to abandon a court-ordered affirmative-action hiring policy that it has followed for 30 years, ruling that the department has enough minority members in its ranks and can no longer use race as a basis for hiring.

US District Judge Patti B. Saris granted a request by eight white men denied jobs last year as police officers to put an end to the department's practice of hiring one minority candidate for every white candidate it brings on board.

Yesterday's ruling closes a chapter on three decades of affirmative-action hiring practices at the police and fire departments, both of which had been following 1974 federal consent decrees providing that they reach roughly the same percentage of African-American and Hispanic officers on their forces as in the city's population.

In a 30-page opinion, Saris wrote that the Police Department has met that goal of racial parity for more than a year. A similar ruling last year by a federal appeals court found that the Fire Department had achieved racial balance among its firefighters and could no longer follow similar racial quotas.

Saris pointed out that as Boston's minority population has increased substantially over the past 30 years, minority representation within the Police Department ''has grown even faster." She concluded that Boston's adherence to the terms of the decree in October 2003, when the city relied on racial quotas to pass over the eight white applicants, was unconstitutional.

Harold L. Lichten, a Boston lawyer who filed the suits against the police and fire departments, said yesterday that Saris's ruling ''will mean people will now be hired based on score, not whether they are black or white.

''It could radically change the numbers of minorities and whites that are hired in the Police Department," Lichten said.

Saris gave lawyers involved in the case 15 days to make proposals on what relief should be granted to the eight white police applicants, who are all seeking to be hired.

But some fear that without the court order, the Police Department will revert to being a predominantly white organization that doesn't represent the city it is supposed to protect.

''It is critical for the Police Department in the city of Boston to adequately reflect the diversity of the population," said Nadine Cohen, a lawyer with the Lawyers Committee for Civil Rights Under Law. ''We are concerned that without the consent decree that the city may once again have a predominantly white police force."

Cohen, whose group represents the Massachusetts Association of Minority Law Enforcement Officers, predicted that the number of minority officers will decrease if the city adopts a new hiring policy based on test scores and statutory preferences, which include additional consideration for veterans.

''We do not want to see a segregated police force," she said. ''That's where we started out."

The original decree resolved a lawsuit filed in 1970 by black and Hispanic candidates who had been denied jobs as police officers. At the time, a judge said that the order was designed to ''counteract the unconscious lopsidedness of the [police] recruitment of the past."

Police Commissioner Kathleen M. O'Toole issued a statement last night saying that she wanted to assure city residents that yesterday's ruling ''does not mean that the department is abandoning its commitment to diversity."

O'Toole said that the remedy ordered by the court 30 years ago ''was not intended to last forever" and that officials have been preparing for years for its expiration, in part by actively recruiting in minority communities.

''I am confident that those efforts will be successful in helping us maintain a department that is representative of the population of the city of Boston," O'Toole said.

According to the suit on behalf of the eight applicants, Hispanics and African-Americans make up roughly 40 percent of the Police Department and the city. Seven of the applicants arguing that they should have been hired scored 100 on the Civil Service exam; the eighth, Paul DeLeo Jr., now a Cambridge police officer, scored 101.

''What we hope will come out of this litigation is someone will realize what they really need to do is come up with a hiring system which results in getting the best people for the job," Lichten said.

Leonard Alkins, president of the Boston branch of the NAACP, said he was concerned about dismantling the Police Department's affirmative action policy. But Alkins said the NAACP would work with O'Toole to make sure that she maintains diversity at all levels of the department.

''I don't think we will see what we saw 30 yeas ago," Alkins said. ''I think the administration within the Police Department recognizes that things have changed. The population has changed in the city of Boston in that the ways of the past serve no good for the betterment of the community. The ways of the past are just that, the ways of the past."

In her ruling, Saris rejected another argument raised by the plaintiffs, who had challenged the Police Department's decision to hire a class of only women in June 2002.

The judge found that it wasn't discriminatory because the city has an ongoing operational need to hire female officers for certain investigations, including the handling of female suspects and prisoners and interacting with female sexual assault victims.