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09-3626 Stinnett v. City of Chicago

By: WISCONSIN LAW JOURNAL STAFF//January 4, 2011//

09-3626 Stinnett v. City of Chicago

By: WISCONSIN LAW JOURNAL STAFF//January 4, 2011//

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Employment
Race discrimination

It was not race discrimination for a fire department to update its eligibility list for promotions.

“Since, despite being similarly situated to Byrne and Kaveney, Stinnett was treated worse than either of them, and he is black and they are white, it behooved the City to give a reason or reasons for the difference in treatment. The reason it gave is that like other employers it does not use the same eligibility list till the end of time, for then new employees would never be eligible for promotion. Employers therefore update their eligibility lists from time to time. There is nothing invidious about such updating. Deveraux v. City of Chicago, 14 F.3d 328, 331 (7th Cir. 1994). It has no tendency to favor one racial or other protected group over another, though when an employer updates an eligibility list the ranking a person had on the previous list may change. By the end of 2006 the fire department’s 2000 list was obsolete. The department wanted to change to a system in which a new exam would be given, and a new eligibility list compiled, every three years. Because of the time it would take, beginning in 2006, to design and administer a new exam, score the results, and compile a new eligibility list, promotions from a new list would not be made (as it turned out) until 2008. It thus was past time, in 2006 when the decision was made to create a new list, and February 2007, when the last promotions from the old list were made, for a new list to be created from which to make all further promotions.”

Affirmed.

09-3626 Stinnett v. City of Chicago

Appeal from the United States District Court for the Northern District of Illinois, St. Eve, J., Posner, J.

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