A panel of the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals reversed itself to reinstate a jury’s finding that John Hithon, an African-American worker at a Tyson Foods plant in Gadsden, Alabama, was discriminated against by his employer.

By John Payton
Editor’s Note — The President and Director-Counsel of the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund takes issue in a letter to the New York Times of November 2 with a recent op-ed dismissing the effectiveness of recent civil rights litigation.

By Ronnie Reese via the Chicago Tribune
Editor’s Note — Nearly two decades ago, nearly 6,000 black Chicagoans had sought the chance to serve their city as firefighters. Their quest dream was at first denied, and then long-delayed before being ultimately vindicated by the Supreme Court in the case of Lewis v. The City of Chicago. This week the first of those candidates were called to begin the first round of testing, as an article from the Chicago Tribune

The Court’s ruling makes it more difficult for workers to collectively enforce their right to a discrimination-free workplace.

Earlier this week, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit issued an order requiring a federal trial court to further review an agreement that settled an employment discrimination lawsuit against the New York City Board of Education.

This morning, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit ruled in favor of a class of over 6,000 qualified African-American firefighter applicants who were unfairly denied the opportunity to work for the Chicago Fire Department.

By Stacey Patton
In this climate, when employers can be especially choosy about whom they hire, and some major companies appear to be engaging in a discriminatory practice that hurts the unemployed, a disproportionate number of them black.

By Doug Miller
Facing prosecution by the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ), national mortgage lender PrimeLending has agreed to pay $2 million to African-American home buyers who the federal agency says were unfairly charged higher interest rates because of their race.

John  Hithon believed his supervisor’s failure to promote him resulted from racial prejudice and filed an employment discrimination claim against Tyson Foods, Inc. in 1996. Part of the evidence backing Hithon’s claim was testimony confirming his white boss’s habit of referring to him, an African-American man, using the derogatory term “boy.”

By Kenneth J. Cooper
So far this year three states have passed laws to help ex-offenders land jobs. But because the changes in anti-discrimination statutes impact the back end of incarceration, they don’t wring any of the rampant racial unfairness out of the criminal justice system.