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Constitutional Law Keyed to Choper
Washington v. Davis
Citation:
426 U.S. 229, 96 S.Ct. 2040, 48 L.Ed.2d 597 (1976).Facts
To become a police officer in the District of Columbia, a police recruit is required to satisfy certain physical and character standards, to be a high school graduate or its equivalent, and to receive a grade of at least 40 out of 80 on “Test 21,” an examination that is used generally throughout the federal service which was developed by the Civil Service Commission and which was designed to test verbal ability, vocabulary, reading, and comprehension.
The evidence showed that roughly 4x as many blacks as whites failed Test 21. Apart from the test, however, the Police Department had systematically and affirmatively sought to enroll black officers. As a result, 44% of new police force recruits had been black in the years preceding this case.
Plaintiffs argue that Test 21 has a substantially discriminatory impact and could not be used unless the Police Department could show that it bears a substantial and demonstrated relationship to performance on the job.
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