Chief’s Counsel: A Comprehensive Approach to Eliminating Adverse Impact in Public Safety Promotional Exams

The U.S. Supreme Court issued a decision in May 2010 holding that the city of Chicago is liable under Title VII for the adoption of a testing process that had a disparate impact on African Americans applying for firefighter positions and also for the application of that process when it selected applicants from the list generated by that flawed test some years later. The Court decided that during the entire life of an eligibility list and one year after the list’s expiration, any candidate may sue for discrimination if each hire causes or exacerbates adverse impact. In the past, this was not the case because, when an eligibility list was initially published, it was reviewed at that time for adverse impact and potential adverse impact. Now, plaintiffs can evaluate the list after its expiration to determine how it might have ultimately impacted those who might claim discrimination.

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Much avoidable policing liability does not begin with bad intent. It begins with answering the wrong question.    Officers, supervisors, and chiefs are often asked after the fact to explain why...
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Police officers are intimately familiar with the Fourth Amendment to the United States Constitution.1 The terms contained in that amendment—and how judges interpret those terms—dictate how officer...
Investigations
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Failure to understand the distinction between so-called immigration warrants issued by an immigration judge or traditional arrest or search warrants issued by a federal court judge can lead to liabili...
Chief's Counsel
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For today’s police officers, the first sign of a serious threat increasingly appears not on a street corner or in a call for service, but on a screen. Posts, comments, livestreams, group chats, and ...
Chief's Counsel
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The practice of placing officers "on call" raises questions concerning a municipality’s obligation to pay officers, as well as the ability to restrict such officers’ activities while on an "on-cal...
Chief's Counsel
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In 2011, this author wrote an article for the Chief’s Counsel section of Police Chief magazine titled “Critical Incident Review Board: Creation and Refinement.” The purpose of the article was ...
Chief's Counsel
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Immigration enforcement in the United States is generally a civil matter, handled exclusively by federal agents working for U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) or Customs and Border Patrol....
Chief's Counsel
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Imagine this: a qualified applicant submits a résumé for a position in a department. Before anyone on the team lays eyes on it, an artificial intelligence (AI) system screens them out. No interview....
Chief's Counsel
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Words matter. The terms used to describe police work—law enforcement, public safety, guardian, protector, or warrior—do more than signal a philosophy. They define the profession’s purpose, s...
Chief's Counsel
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On May 15, 2025, the U.S. Supreme Court issued a landmark decision in Barnes v. Felix, fundamentally altering the legal evaluation of excessive force claims under the Fourth Amendment. The ruling reje...