Historic lawsuit by the CTU against the CPS claiming school closings and turnarounds are racist and discriminatory.
The following is a summary of the claim and preliminary statement filed in the UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT FOR THE NORTHERN DISTRICT OF ILLINOIS EASTERN DIVISION by attorney Robin Potter on behalf of the Chicago Teachers Union and three teachers.
SUMMARY OF CLAIM
1. This is an action under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, as amended by the 1991 Civil Rights Act, 42 U.S.C. Sec. 2000e seq. and under 42 U.S.C. §§1981 and 1983 for violation of plaintiffs’ rights of Equal Protection under the Fourteenth Amendment and to redress defendants’ racially discriminatory employment practices and policies. Defendants continue to engage in a policy, pattern or practice of race discrimination against a class of African American teachers and para- professional staff, by targeting South and West side schools with disproportionately higher African American teachers and staff for “turnaround,” resulting in the termination of all employees of the schools.
PRELIMINARY STATEMENT
2. Defendants operate the Chicago Public School system (“CPS”), consisting of approximately 685 schools, servicing over 400,000 students in each of Chicago’s 77 neighborhoods. Approximately 90% of the students educated in CPS’s 578 non-charter schools are minorities, of which 42% are identified as African American.
3. CPS is currently divided into four (4) networks: Far South, South Side, Southwest Side and West Side.
4. The African American teaching force in CPS as a percentage of the overall teaching population