order non hybrid seeds LandRightsNFarming: Re: discrimination went on in iowa during secretary tom vilsack's, term as governor

Wednesday, September 14, 2011

Re: discrimination went on in iowa during secretary tom vilsack's, term as governor



On Wed, Sep 14, 2011 at 1:04 PM, <LawrLCL@aol.com> wrote:

The state of Iowa's failure for decades to follow its own rules on hiring has allowed racial bias to creep into decisions on hiring and pay, according to the lead plaintiffs' attorney in a multimillion-dollar, class-action lawsuit trial that began this morning.

Plaintiffs' attorney Thomas Newkirk said Iowa's failure to follow its own rules on training, testing and generation of paperwork to document decisions created an environment where essentially no one was watching the state's hiring managers.

State officials neglected for decades to even audit to make sure the rules were followed, he said in opening arguments before Polk County District Judge Robert Blink.

"There are simply too many holes and too many missing pieces in a system that's supposed to work as an integrated whole," Newkirk said.

Iowa officials previously have contended that the plaintiffs failed to prove a link between statistical hiring differences and racial bias. Deputy Iowa Attorney General Jeffrey Thompson declined this morning to offer an opening argument, opting instead to give it later in a trial that's expected to run several weeks.

Newkirk and other attorneys in the case of Pippen v. State of Iowa say the class-action lawsuit ultimately could impact up to 6,000 African Americans who they say have been denied jobs or promotions since July 2003.

Court papers filed late last week argue that the case should be worth between $66 million and $71 million in paycheck damages alone, depending on various calculations.

The figures include back and future pay for the class members based on the number of blacks who plaintiffs contend would have been hired if the system worked the same as it did for whites, plus more than $7 million in back pay for current black state employees, who the lawsuit contends are underpaid.

Those numbers due not include additional money the plaintiffs are seeking for emotional damages.

Testimony is scheduled to begin this morning in the nonjury trial with video testimony from a state hiring official.

Opening arguments were followed with extensive objections about which portions of the video should be shown.