Ford, auto workers settle discrimination lawsuit
CINCINNATI — Ford Motor Co., two related companies and the United Auto Workers (UAW) will pay $1.6 million and provide other relief to settle a race discrimination lawsuit, a federal agency says.
In a class-action suit, the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) charged that a written test used by Ford, Visteon Corp. and Automotive Components Holdings discriminated against blacks. The test was used to determine eligibility for a skilled trades apprenticeship program.
UAW was a defendant because the test was used to select apprentices in the joint Ford-UAW program and people affected by the settlement are covered by the union agreement.
A Ford spokeswoman said the company does not believe the test was discriminatory.
“It was approved by EEOC when it was developed,” Ford spokeswoman Kristen Kinley said. “However, Ford favors the settlement because it is in the company’s and the public’s best interest to work toward developing the best possible test.”
Automotive Components Holdings is a temporary business entity managed by Ford.
The settlement includes about $1.6 million for the 700 class members nationwide who have taken the test since Jan. 1, 1997 and were not placed on the Ford apprentice list at the former Visteon facilities. The settlement also places 55 black test takers on the apprentice lists and requires development of a new selection method by a jointly selected expert with detailed reporting and monitoring.
“We are pleased this settlement will address the serious problems of selection criteria that result in racial minorities receiving fewer job opportunities,” EEOC Chairwoman Naomi Earp said in a statement.
The lawsuit is a successor case to an earlier EEOC suit filed in Cincinnati against Ford and the UAW. That suit settled for $9.2 million in 2005 covered 3,400 people, Daniel J. Cabot, director of the agency’s Cleveland field office, said.
The latest settlement covers people who weren’t included in the earlier one.
Ohio crack offenders hoping for lighter sentences
COLUMBUS, Ohio — At least 620 Ohio prisoners serving federal sentences for crack cocaine offenses could be released early because of new guidelines that bring crack and powdered cocaine sentences into closer line.
On Dec. 11, a day after the U.S. Supreme Court sided with federal judges who had rejected the old sentencing guidelines as too harsh, the U.S. Sentencing Commission expanded its new rules to make them retroactive to people currently serving time for crack crimes.
As the issue was being sorted out nationally, Ohio lawmakers were among those who acted at the state level to even out sentences for the two types of cocaine.
The issue has racial overtones. Crack cocaine offenses, which carried harsher sentences, involve more blacks, while powder cocaine crimes involve more whites.
The sentencing changes take effect March 3, but prisoners are already lining up to apply.
Steve Nolder, a federal public defender for the southern district of Ohio, said phone lines are ringing steadily. U.S. District Judge Gregory L. Frost said one inmate’s request has been on his desk since Dec. 17.
In its review of cocaine sentences over the past 15 years, the commission found nearly one in five drug convictions nationally was for crack cocaine, meaning the changes could affect a significant portion of the federal prison population, Nolder said.
Disparities between crack and powder cocaine sentences have prompted complaints for decades. Historically, drug dealers and users could be sentenced to 20 years in federal prison for having 5 grams of crack cocaine, but it took 500 grams of powder cocaine to prompt the same sentence.
“It should have never been a 100-to-1” disparity, Frost said.
The commission estimates crack sentences will be reduced, on average, by 27 months.
Second N.Y. juror says she felt pressured in racially charged teen shooting case
RIVERHEAD, New York — A second juror who convicted a black man of shooting a white teenager in a racially charged encounter now says she felt pressured by fellow jurors to change her vote to guilty.
Juror Donna Marshak told the New York Post she was so distraught when the verdict was read that she turned her face away so she did not have to look at John White as he was convicted of manslaughter in the Aug. 9, 2006, shooting.
The verdict came after 12 hours of deliberations on Dec. 22, the fourth day in which the jury considered defense arguments that White feared a “lynch mob” had set upon him when a group of angry white teenagers gathered outside his home in Miller Place, a predominantly white community on Long Island.
The Post had previously reported that another juror, Francois Larche, decided to change his vote to guilty after Suffolk County Judge Barbara Kahn told jurors they would have to return Sunday if they did not reach a verdict.
Marshak, a 63-year-old white retiree, said the decision by Larche, who also is white, to change his vote left her as the lone holdout, the Post reported last Wednesday. She said she did not believe she could change the minds of any other jurors.
“I haven’t felt right since the trial ended,” she said. “I definitely have some regrets about not sticking to it.”
White, 54, was convicted in the shooting of 17-year-old Daniel Cicciaro Jr. He remains free on bail until sentencing, when he could face a prison term of five to 15 years. White has said he will appeal.
