Opinion ID: 203736
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: The Castro Consent Decree

Text: The history of the Castro consent decree sets the stage. In 1970, eight minority plaintiffs, [1] who had applied unsuccessfully to become Boston police officers, brought suit against the Massachusetts Civil Service Division, an agency which has since become known as the Human Resources Division (HRD), the name we use. The suit alleged discriminatory hiring and recruiting practices, which violated the Fourteenth Amendment and had led to a disproportionately low number of minority police officers in Boston. See Castro I, 334 F.Supp. at 934-35; see also Deleo v. City of Boston, No. 03-12538, 2004 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 24034, at  (D.Mass. Nov. 23, 2004) (At the time, the black population of [Boston] was approximately 16.3% of the total population, but about 3.6% of the Boston police force was black.). [2] The district court in Castro I rejected the plaintiffs' claims as to several of the eligibility requirements. See, e.g., Castro I, 334 F.Supp. at 947-41 (discussing the height and swim test requirements). It also declined to certify the plaintiffs' requested class. Id. at 947-48. It concluded, however, that the Massachusetts Civil Service Police Entrance Examinationthe written examination administered by HRD to police applicantsdiscriminated against minorities who did not share the prevailing white culture. Id. at 943. The court barred the use of the existing examination and set out guidelines for creating a non-discriminatory one. See id. at 944-45; see also Castro v. Beecher ( Castro II ), 459 F.2d 725, 729 (1st Cir.1972). The decision was appealed to this court, which held that class certification should have been granted. Castro II, 459 F.2d at 732. It agreed that the examination was discriminatory, but held that the district court's remedy had been too narrow, and remanded. This court stated that, [i]n our view, if relief in the near future is to be more than token, further provision is necessary, and that the relief could include the creation of a priority pool for minority applicants who passed a non-discriminatory examination and who could be hired according to a preferential ratio. Id. at 737. While recognizing that any such effort is bound to be a crude one and must be pursued with sensitivity, this court stated that preferential status for the priority pool will yield a significant increment of [minority] police officers in the near term. Id. at 736-37. Following the remand, and in the context that use of the extant examination was illegal, the parties entered into what has now come to be known as the Castro consent decree. The decree was approved by the district court in 1973. Castro v. Beecher ( Castro III ), 365 F.Supp. 655, 660 (D.Mass.1973). The court stated that the decree was intended to counteract the unconscious lopsidedness of the recruitment of the past by giv[ing] a ... priority to [minority candidates] who have shown themselves qualified. Id. at 659. In entering a consent decree, the defendant state authorities may well have agreed to relief beyond what the Constitution would have provided as a remedy. See United States v. Charles George Trucking, Inc., 34 F.3d 1081, 1091 (1st Cir.1994). This is a point we need not decide. The consent decree was subsequently revisited and modified. See Castro V, 522 F.Supp. at 875; Castro v. Beecher ( Castro IV ), 386 F.Supp. 1281, 1285-86 (D.Mass. 1975). The amended remedy was explicitly modeled on the consent decree adopted in a parallel case involving Massachusetts firefighters. See Castro IV, 386 F.Supp. at 1286 (citing Boston Chapter, NAACP, Inc. v. Beecher, 371 F.Supp. 507 (D.Mass.), aff'd, 504 F.2d 1017 (1st Cir.1974)); see also Castro V, 522 F.Supp. at 875. The Castro consent decree required HRD to prepare certification lists by creating two groups. The first, Group A, would consist of all Black and Spanish-surnamed applicants who pass a future police entrance examination and are otherwise qualified for appointment on the basis of existing requirements. The second, Group B, would consist of all other persons who pass a future police entrance examination and are otherwise qualified for appointment on the basis of existing requirements. When an appointing authority, such as the City, sought to hire police officers, it would send a request to HRD, which would send the appointing authority a certification list ordered on the basis of one candidate from Group A for every candidate certified from Group B. In making its hiring decisions, if the appointing authority chose to reject a candidate in favor of another candidate who appeared lower on the HRD list, HRD would not approve the appointment unless the appointing authority furnished [HRD] with a written statement of [its] reasons for doing so; HRD would then provide a written statement of those reasons to ... the candidate upon written request. The Castro decree was to remain in effect for a given city until that city's police department achieves a complement of minorities commensurate with the percentage of minorities within the community. The decree accordingly continues to apply to Springfield. The plaintiffs agree that is so. Boston is no longer under the decree. See Deleo, 2004 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 24034, at  (finding that Boston had reached this goal for minority representation).