September 20, 2004
Fire Michael J. Creppy —DOJ’s $11.5 Million Man!
By
Juan Mann
[See also
by Juan Mann:
The EOIR’s other directive -- White males need not apply]
The Department of Justice
has just announced that, pending final approval by an
administrative judge of the Equal Employment Opportunity
Commission (EEOC), it will pay up to $11.5 million to
settle a class action
discrimination law suit filed by
white males who were bypassed for jobs as
immigration judges in the DOJ’s Executive Office for
Immigration Review (EOIR)
during 1994 and 1995.
About $7.5 million will go
to the plaintiffs and about $4 million in
contingency fees and expenses for their attorneys,
Washington D.C.’s
Kator, Parks & Weiser.
Notice of the settlement
was posted on the EOIR’s web site [PDF]
– “Resolution
of Class Action Discrimination Complaint at EEOC—amended
September 15, 2004.”
The agreement does not
obligate the DOJ to appoint any of the denied applicants
to immigration judge positions in the future. Money
will be
distributed according to a complex formula. Kator,
Parks’
web site posts the
full text of the settlement agreement, details of
the
distribution formula for monetary awards, and a list
of
frequently-asked questions about the litigation.
The law firm will host an information session for
members of the class action on
October 5, 2004 at
10:00 a.m. at the Grand Hyatt
Washington, 1000 H Street, N.W., Washington, D.C. They
“strongly encourage” class members to
participate.
The information now made
public about the settlement sheds some light on what
happened in the
litigation, which went on for more than nine years.
But, although the DOJ
agreed to pay $11.5 million of
taxpayer dollars to make the
discrimination lawsuit go away, it did not give an
inch on the issue of liability. As the settlement
agreement
states:
“The Agency expressly denies any wrongdoing or liability
whatsoever. This Settlement Agreement represents the
compromise of disputed claims.”
DOJ won’t admit that
anyone did anything wrong at the EOIR, including the man
in charge of all the immigration judge hiring – Chief
Immigration Judge
Michael J. Creppy.
Still, before giving away
millions, I’ll bet the DOJ got a pretty good idea of
what went on in the EOIR immigration judge
hiring process during 1994 and 1995 . . . after what
the plaintiff’s lawyers describe as “extensive
liability-related discovery and preparation, which
included deposing 35 witnesses.”
With $11.5 million
changing hands, as the old saying goes – where’s
there’s smoke, there’s fire.
Of course, if the
settlement goes into effect, all of the information
found out during the discovery phase of the litigation
will never see the light of day.
[VDARE.com note:
unless it’s
leaked, of course.]
But now that the
$11.5 million amount has been announced, what I
wrote in March, 2004 holds more than ever true.
“. . . [I]t’s high
time for all the EOIR bureaucrats responsible for this
travesty to be fired!
“It’s also time for the
Attorney General to investigate Creppy’s own conduct
surrounding the entire
employment discrimination claim . . . and to
clean house at the EOIR starting at the top. As a
holdover from the Clinton Administration, Creppy’s time
at the EOIR has come and gone long ago.”
The bottom line: the
Bush Administration should get to the bottom of this
disgrace—and fire the $11.5 million-dollar-man
responsible for it.
What is the White House
waiting for?
Juan Mann [send him
email] is a lawyer and the proprietor of
DeportAliens.com.
