I'm ShockedMike Rappaport

That the Obama Justice Department is planning to vastly increase the "civil rights" lawsuits based on statistics rather than individual cases of intentional discrimination:

As part of this shift, the Obama administration is planning a major revival of high-impact civil rights enforcement against policies, in areas ranging from housing to hiring, where statistics show that minorities fare disproportionately poorly. President George W. Bush’s appointees had discouraged such tactics, preferring to focus on individual cases in which there is evidence of intentional discrimination.

[T]he Obama White House has also proposed a hiring spree that would swell the ranks of several hundred civil rights lawyers with more than 50 additional lawyers, a significant increase for a relatively small but powerful division of the government.

Just great.  At least these guys are consistent -- consistently bad.  

Comments

[Equal Justice]

Statistics are evidence of outcomes. At some point, deviance from the mean is certainly suspicious and grounds for investigation. The article doesn't say that every deviation from the mean will be an automatic lawsuit, and that would be silly. But making it grounds for inquiry -- which takes extra staff, and will undoubtedly reveal many cases of illegality which will also take extra staff -- is sensible.

Similar techniques are used to find money launders and tax evaders. Do you object to those lawbreakers being hunted with data, or only the racists?

There is no question that the Bush administration turned a blind eye to certain kinds of lawbreaking, civil rights violations high among them. Are you proud of that?

You don't like the new focus on actually applying the law on the books? Get the law changed to make racism in the workplace legal. Otherwise you should applaud vigorous enforcement of the law.

Since when are conservatives for coddling criminals and racists? Oh, right -- since Nixon.

[Mike]

The Department of Justice needs to fix its problem of prosecutorial misconduct before they go on a civil rights crusade.

[krome]

There were racial disparities in mortgage lending. In large part, because there were racial disparities in mortgage delinquencies and defaults - people with otherwise equal incomes (etc.) had different creditworthiness. The "remedy" to that problem gave us the subprime loan disaster.

[Lou Gots]

Equal Justice might consider the Ricci case. That case dealy with what burdens and presumptions arise from statistical variation of outcomes.

When statistical variation automatically amounts to prima facie discrimination, the way is open to a racial spoils system, the result the Ricci Court sought to avoid.

[brightcoast]

If the stats don't reflect reality, then the suits will be thrown out anyway. Granted, no one wants unfounded suits to clog up the system, but as previous poster mentioned, the stats reflect a reality.

More importantly, that's 50 more potential jobs for USD law grads!

[Mike Rappaport]

The comments by Equal Justice and BrightCoast reflect either an ignorance of or a distortion of the truth in the areas I am most familiar with. With the disparate impact approach in employment, as reflected in the Ricci case, statistical disparities can result in liability even if those disparities merely reflect the fact that talent is not randomly distributed in the pool. To put it differently, the deck is stacked in favor of civil rights plaintiffs.

[Jonathan]

Even if a suit is thrown out there may be substantial costs for the defendants.

[brightcoast]

Right, disparate impact can mean that nothing unconstitutional is going on. However, if this is the case, then as you stated, case law will mean that they have to basis upon which to state a claim. I'm thinking D.C. police case, Ricci overrules that?

[Mike Rappaport]

Perhaps I was not clear. I was only referring to Ricci is a case involving disparate impact. The point is that disparate impact creates a strong presumption of discrimination, which it makes quite difficult to rebut. This is a formula for quotas and preferences, not for uncovering discrimination.