Constitutional Law, Courts, Politics, Society

Missouri Prosecutor Awarded Over $2 Million After Being Denied Judgeship Because She Is White

The Missouri Supreme Court has handed down an important ruling on reverse discrimination — upholding an award of more than $2 million for a white prosecutor, Melissa Howard, who was denied a judgeship in 2006 because the Kansas City Council wanted a minority in the position.


The decision reverses an opinion by the appeals court that the state human rights act didn’t apply to municipal judges. Specifically, § 213.055 of the MHRA states:

1. It shall be an unlawful employment practice: (1) For an employer, because of the race, color, religion, national
origin, sex, ancestry, age or disability of any individual: (a) To fail or refuse to hire or to discharge any individual, or
otherwise to discriminate against any individual with respect to his compensation, terms, conditions, or privileges of employment, because of such individual’s race, color, religion, national origin, sex, ancestry, age or disability;
(b) To limit, segregate, or classify his employees or his employment applicants in any way which would deprive or tend to deprive any individual of employment opportunities or otherwise adversely affect his status and an employee, because of such individual’s race, color, religion, national origin, sex, ancestry, age or disability[.]

The city council members objected when all of the three nominees for the judgeship turned out to be white. Here are some of the statements made by council members:

“There is no diversity whatsoever . . . within the panel of contestants who have been referred to us.”
“I feel as though at this point I’m given . . . a very narrow opportunity for selection because I only have a sampling of one demographic of our city and that is Caucasian females.”
“[T]he fact remains this panel has no diversity whatsoever . . . I move that we reject . . . this panel back to the committee and not make a selection at this time.”
“For me there is an issue of equity related to racial mix, when you have thirteen candidates and you have six of color and none appear on the panel, it’s hard for me to believe that you have six of those candidates of color none of whom would qualify to be in the top three . . . I just don’t believe that is the case.”
“I have a hunch that if this [panel] is returned to the commission that there is a message there.”
“All one need do is look at the numbers, race matters in America, it matters in the State of Missouri and it matters in the city of Kansas City.”
“We need to send this panel back and show that this city, of Kansas City, is fair in its diversity practices” because “this [panel] does not reflect the diversity of Kansas City.”
“When we talk about diversity, do we include gender?”
“If there were three qualified black candidates on this panel, I would not be voting to reject the panel because they . . . did not represent the exact demographics of this city” and “this discussion is absolutely ridiculous . . . we have three qualified candidates here . . . we ought to vote for [one of them].”
“This has nothing to do with your [the panelists’] qualifications . . . I think you are certainly qualified.”
“We continue to talk about divisiveness . . . in terms of race relations . . . but the divisiveness took place when the panel was presented.”
“It ha[s] nothing to do with their credentials; I think all of them are highly qualified.”
“We have been in line for a long time . . . a lot of people have been in line . . . just to be represented.”
“Diversity . . . being an African-American in America it’s a whole lot different than you can ever imagine and so you really can’t say I understand where you are.”
“It’s not about these women. Each of these women have gone to college, earned degrees and made a very good life for themselves and have good reputations.”
“I think it’s a shame . . . [and] it may even be illegal for us to sit here and not have the courage to [s]elect a judge today.”
“These three women have risen up in a field that is male dominated . . . for us to dismiss the diversity they bring to the table is unfortunate . . . so I’m disappointed that we don’t feel you’re [the panel] minority enough – that you’re not diverse enough.”

Howard testified that she was asked why she even bothered to apply when she was not black. She was awarded $633,000 in compensatory damages and $1.5 million in punitive damages.

Here is the opinion.

Source: ABA Journal

67 thoughts on “Missouri Prosecutor Awarded Over $2 Million After Being Denied Judgeship Because She Is White”

  1. Tootie:

    I know you like acting stupid because you think it’s cute but, it’s not. You know exactly what I was talking about, missy.

    AY:

    Since Tootie alleges genocide against the white race, I was inquiring as to if the KKK were lynched back in the day, too.

    rafflaw:

    My bad. I’ll spank myself with a wet noodle XD

  3. Tootie,

    I think Stamford said or indirectly stated that they [the Jews] lynched the KKK back in the day…..

    This sir I think you are misconstruing…

  6. Gyges:

    “Furthermore I challenge you to provide any evidence that our immigration policy is designed to intentionally destroy American culture.”

    I think Tootie’s more concerned with WHITE American culture …

  8. Tootie,

    “…the definition of genocide includes intentionally destroying a culture against the will of a people. And it can be done by any means: outright murder, or herding people out of a territory, or even preventing them from having children, or making it difficult for them to do so say, by, swamping the majority population with a population-changing flood of fecund, uneducated, and hostile foreigners who no no intention of going along to get along and have come to plunder wealth and heritage. ”

    Well let’s see Here’s Article 2 from the UN Convention on Genocide:

    In the present Convention, genocide means any of the following acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group, as such:

    * (a) Killing members of the group;
    * (b) Causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group;
    * (c) Deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part;
    * (d) Imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group;
    * (e) Forcibly transferring children of the group to another group.

    Hmmm, I don’t see anything about floods of immigrants. Do you?
    Because if you don’t then if you had an single once of integrity then you’d have to admit that you’re wrong in what you claim the legal definition of genocide is. A fact that I KNOW I’ve pointed out to you before in the past.

    Furthermore I challenge you to provide any evidence that our immigration policy is designed to intentionally destroy American culture.

    This right here is why you’re met with such hostility on this site. Because, you emit a whole spectra of hostility towards every one and everything that is different from your world view. When we run your posts through a prism we get the whole rainbow: flat out bigotry; dehumanizing rhetoric like, “fecund, uneducated, and hostile foreigners;” your condescension toward Mike S in matters concerning the ‘correct’ interpretation of the Torah; and your absurd caricatures of those you call leftists. It must be exhausting to constantly shine with such a blinding light of fear and loathing towards humanity.

    I know it’s tiring to be exposed to, and most people get cranky when they get sunburned.

  9. “And it is pretty-darn super-duper arrogant of you to assume that I’m not a member of a group that has experienced horrid genocide or similar genocide like the Jews in the past such that I wouldn’t also have some alleged right or special status to use the word as you do.”

    They lynched the KKK back in the day??

  10. Tootie,

    Being a woman I know first hand what you are saying about oppression. It is a form of being physically abused. You know what I am saying. Don’t let those sexist pigs get you down. I admire you for your courage. It’s hard being a female that is a minority. I get hit doubly. Them there is this name that I am called by. I am a black Cuban, Jewish and Spanish. We are not mexican. You don’t know it but I am a lesbian. However, I did have unprotected sex with a male once and would like to try that one day again. I have to go now I have to meet with my parole officer. I am Jill.

  11. Mike,

    I said I found that the big racists today in America were blacks and Hispanics. And that is how I see it. You, basically said my response was a Nazi tactic.

    Well let me hurl that back at you bucko: YOUR response is.

    Then you said,

    “Secondly, as a Jew I take offense to your casual use of the term “genocide.”

    Well, aren’t you special? Not only are you going to whine about my using a word in a way that you disapprove, but I’m supposed to believe you can define for me what is its casual as well.

    I guess, then, following your lead, I will take offense that you believe that AS A JEW you have some special qualification to tell me what words to use to express myself. I guess you think you have some authority over words or definitions such that anyone else not being a Jew would have to ask your permission or get your approval to use them? Do you think you have some kind of power to decide this merely by virtue of being a Jew and not by virtue of etymology, the law, or philosophical disquisitions?

    And it is pretty-darn super-duper arrogant of you to assume that I’m not a member of a group that has experienced horrid genocide or similar genocide like the Jews in the past such that I wouldn’t also have some alleged right or special status to use the word as you do. And, though I am a member of a group subjected to mass genocide in the past, I don’t use this historical fact of my heritage to take cheap political shots at those I disagree with in order to control others or their thinking.

    Not all people who belong to groups which suffer persecution arrogantly use that persecution to bully and intimidate others to be silent about things they do not wish to discuss.

    If the white, black, or purple polka-dotted population of any country catastrophically and suddenly shifted such that any of these racial majority groups might quickly find themselves on the verge of becoming a minority against their will, I am never going to care how many arrogant, self-righteous, holier-than-thou Jews might rise up against me and presume I have no special understanding or status to use the word genocide without clearing it with them first.

    I’m still going to call genocide genocide no matter what Jews, Christians, Buddhists, Muslims, or atheists may say against me. They don’t own me or the language. And they don’t own how the debate will proceed.

    And I’m going to call it genocide in accordance with the legal definition of it, in conjunction with the demographic data supplied by the US government, and along with the fact that the majority population in America NEVER voted for the US government to make them a minority group through the Immigration Act of 1965 or any subsequent laws.

    If you will READ the International Law about genocide, you will see that murder does not have to happen for genocide to occur. If you had read the law then would have known this fact and I wouldn’t have to point it out at this time.

    All that has to happen for the legal conditions of genocide to be present is that a government or those in power knowingly act to take measures that knowingly eliminate any population, race, religion, ethnicity, or culture. Violence does NOT have to occur.

    How shall you murder a culture anyway?

    You cannot.

    But as sure as the wind blows, the definition of genocide includes intentionally destroying a culture against the will of a people. And it can be done by any means: outright murder, or herding people out of a territory, or even preventing them from having children, or making it difficult for them to do so say, by, swamping the majority population with a population-changing flood of fecund, uneducated, and hostile foreigners who no no intention of going along to get along and have come to plunder wealth and heritage.

    It’s genocide.

    Causing American whites to move from nearly 90 percent of the population to less than 50 percent while government promises them that won’t happen, while government watches that happen in the demographic data government itself provides, IS by definition genocide.

    If genocide were not happening, whites would not be headed towards minority status. Since this is happening against their will and government is forcing it on them, it is, genocide.

  12. “Brown v Board ripped neighborhoods apart and caused more animosity between the two groups.”

    Tootie,
    You mistake my point. Brown v. Board was a good decision, it was they way it was carried out that was mistaken.

    “I find the biggest racists in America these days tend to be blacks and Hispanics.”

    I find that the biggest racists in America today are those who would make statements like that. It’s the old Nazi technique of blaming the victim.

    “Naturally, the genocide of whites in America via immigration is a racist act of epic proportions.”

    Immigration in America was started by the wealthy/corporate white oligarchy to keep wages down, keep freed slaves from getting jobs and to profit greatly for underpaid labor. In other words it was and is supported by the “Teabaggers,” white supremacists and the people you vote for. You all don’t get that the people you support are the problem.

    Secondly, as a Jew I take offense to your casual use of the term “genocide.” There are no whites being murdered for the color of their skin and certainly none being put in gas chambers because of their religion. “White Genocide” is a term used by ultra-racists. While we disagree on much, somehow I didn’t see you as one. With your postings of late perhaps I was mis-reading you.

    “And if they didn’t raise their hands to this, does it violate any sacred notion or legal concept that the people of a country have the right to self-determination up to and including WHO precisely they will “BE” as a people?”

    I guess the Native Americans and Aztecs you referred to didn’t have the same right you extol. Nor did the Africans snatched up as slaves from their native black countries, have the right of self-determination. That right seems only reserved for white people, particularly of a certain religious faith. For instance while Jews were considered white, their legal immigration to this country was limited during different periods. Particularly before the Shoah and many died because of it. This limitation was particularly supported in the South by their representatives in congress. So your definition of white seems to be limited to only those you approve of.

    Secondly, how long have your ancestors been in this country that you and your ilk think gives you the right to determine the makeup of its population. Blacks, native Americans and yes even Jews have been in America longer than most of the white supremacists you look up to.

    By the way just for your information Pat Buchanan, who you take as an authority to quote besides being racist, hates Jews. This was admitted by his close friend and the founder of the current conservative movement in the US, William F. Buckley. do you hate Jews also Tootie and do you believe that my grand parents who came to the US in the 1890’s, makes me less of an American than you? I’m sad to see the virulence of your hatred exposed, because although we disagreed politically I thought there was some redeeming features in your opinions. I guess I was wrong.

  13. We should have our chance. Not everyone of us is as blond as your blonds. Some of us is smart. I don’t like gay, black, jewish fags. They should be exiled to NY or California. Even the mountain men don’t like them.

  14. Blouise,
    pearls and satchels?? I haven’t heard that phrase in a long time. I think I had a Benedictine Nun who used that phrase.

  16. rafflaw,

    I was even being sincere … learned my lesson … pearls and satchels ……

  19. So let’s be clear here, Tootles.

    Jesus only loves white straight people willing to come over here and murder the indigenous population and who are for letting all of society suffer for the greed of the venal and the corporate?

    Uh huh.

    You only prove one thing consistently, Tootikins – that “reading” and “comprehending” are two distinct things.

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