By Dan Belson
The Baltimore Sun
BALTIMORE — New leadership at the Department of Justice dropped a case last week that accused Maryland State Police of violating federal employment discrimination laws, leaving any decisions on reforming the agency’s hiring practices to the state.
Federal prosecutors filed to dismiss the case as President Donald Trump’s administration moves to end several anti-discrimination lawsuits through the Justice Department’s civil rights section. U.S. District Judge Richard D. Bennett ordered the case closed Monday, days after the Justice Department filed notice it would dismiss the case.
While state police leadership vowed to “enhance” its hiring practices regardless of any consent decree, advocates described the move as an unsurprising, yet disappointing, setback in their yearslong push against alleged discrimination within the statewide police department.
With federal oversight of the department’s hiring practices now out of the question, they said that they would try to work with state leaders to fix what they describe as a deep-rooted culture of discrimination in policing.
A larger discrimination lawsuit accused state police of a longstanding pattern of discrimination through discipline, retaliation and the denial of promotions. That class-action lawsuit is set to continue, with discovery ongoing and the deadline to certify a class of plaintiffs currently set for late September.
Attorney Michal Shinnar, who represents the plaintiffs in that lawsuit, said Monday morning that while disappointing, the decision to drop the federal case has no impact on the class-action discrimination case and that the plaintiffs will “continue to move full steam ahead.”
The probe of the state police’s hiring practices, which federal prosecutors had said violated Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, led to a tentative agreement in the final months of President Joe Biden’s administration. Bennett had not yet given his final approval for the consent decree, though Maryland officials had already approved a $2.75 million settlement after the two-year investigation concluded.
The Justice Department said last October that the state police’s written exam, the Police Officer Selection Test, disproportionately excluded Black trooper candidates. The lawsuit also alleged that the agency used a physical fitness test that excluded female candidates. In addition to settlement payments, state police had agreed to relax their testing standards as part of the consent decree.
Bennett, who had signed off on a provisional consent decree, was set to consider final approval at a hearing in mid-March. Federal prosecutors asked him last week to delay that hearing so that the Justice Department’s Civil Rights section could decide whether it would continue litigating the case in light of several orders from the Trump administration. The next day, they said in a court filing that they were dropping the case.
The delay followed a department-wide memorandum issued by Attorney General Pam Bondi directing staff to “thoroughly review” materials, including settlement agreements and consent decrees, that may promote diversity, equity and inclusion. The memo, issued the day of Bondi’s swearing-in ceremony, cited Trump’s executive orders that allege such diversity programs violate the “text and spirit” of federal civil rights laws.
Bondi, a Trump-aligned lawyer who was Florida’s Attorney General before representing the president in his first impeachment case, then directed the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division to dismiss lawsuits across the country involving police and firefighter hiring, according to a news release.
“The United States has determined not to proceed further in this matter,” the Wednesday filing says. “The United States no longer seeks relief that would require Maryland Department of State Police to prioritize candidates for police officers based in any way on race.”
The Justice Department said that the Biden administration had “branded the aptitude tests at issue in these cases as discriminatory in an effort to advance a DEI agenda,” with evidence of statistical disparities but no evidence of intentional discrimination.
It’s unclear how the consent decree would have required the department to prioritize candidates based on race. It would have required state police to implement new “selection devices” that have “no statistically significant adverse impact on the bases of race or sex,” or “have been demonstrated to be job-related for the Trooper position and consistent with business necessity in accordance with Title VII.”
Sgt. Anthony Alexander, president of the Coalition of Black Maryland State Troopers, said that while he was “not surprised” at the Trump administration’s move to dismiss the case, he was “still baffled” that federal intervention was needed in the first place for the state to commit to changes.
Though it remains to be seen what the state will now do, Alexander said he didn’t have much faith in the state to eradicate discriminatory practices without being required by a consent decree.
“This has been the Trump administration’s calling card … to dismantle anything that helps minorities progress,” said Ryan Coleman, president of the Randallstown NAACP, who noted he “wasn’t shocked” to hear that the DOJ dropped its case. He said his group plans to meet with officials including state police Superintendent Col. Roland L. Butler Jr. to reshape the agency’s culture.
Despite the federal government’s decision to drop the case, the state police department “has and will remain committed to enhancing recruitment and hiring practices to ensure fairness, transparency, and equal opportunity for all applicants,” Butler said in a statement.
He said, moving forward, the agency “will continue developing cutting-edge, up-to-date hiring selection processes” including new written and physical tests.
“Our dedication to fostering a professional and inclusive workforce remains steadfast, and we will continue to uphold the highest standards of integrity and accountability,” he said.
The federal government’s case came after years of incidents and discrimination complaints involving troopers of color. Alexander and Coleman said that law enforcement agencies have long struggled to root out discriminatory hiring practices and mitigate unfair promotion and disciplinary practices.
Coleman said his group has had “tremendous success” working with Baltimore County Police to ensure the agency to improve conditions for officers of color. And he’s hopeful that he’ll see similar results under Butler, the first Black leader of the state police. Butler was appointed in 2023 by Gov. Wes Moore, Maryland’s first Black governor.
“We have the right people in place” to make reforms in state government, said Coleman.
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