Khan and Glenford Flowers were rejected for being foreign-born, not in country long enough.
AB Wire
An India-born man, Masood Khan, who was rejected by the Chicago Police Department to be a police officer on grounds of him being foreign-born and not a resident in the US for at least 10 years, has won his discrimination case, along with another similarly rejected applicant, brought forward by the US Justice Department.
The Chicago City Council approved a $3.1 million settlement on Wednesday to Khan and Glenford Flowers, both of whom had passed the department test in 2006 but were not hired. Khan, and Flowers, who was born in Belize, were rejected in 2008 under the policy.
The payout, which passed the City Council’s Committee on Finance on Monday, got a perfunctory approval along with other city settlements in the council’s monthly meeting. Only three of the council’s 50 aldermen objected, reported Law360.
Though the department changed the rule to five years in 2011, the Justice Department suit asked the department to stop using a continuous residency requirement as part of its hiring process. The DOJ also sought back pay, interest on lost wages and compensatory damages on behalf of Khan and Flowers who applied to be police officers but were rebuffed by the rule.
It’s not clear whether the rule will stand or what the terms of the settlement are. The settlement agreement is expected to be filed in Illinois federal court within 14 days, according to court documents.
More than 92 percent of the candidates rejected as a result of the rule were foreign-born, according to the complaint, while foreign-born people made up just 8 percent of applicants who had lived in the country for more than 10 years.
The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission began the investigation into the policy but was unable to reach a resolution and referred the case to the DOJ in 2014, according to the complaint.
This suit is not related to the DOJ’s investigation into the Chicago Police Department following the release of video showing a police officer shooting a teen 16 times, a U.S. Attorney’s office spokesman told Law360 when the suit was filed.