Bay State Banner 10-13-2016

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inside this week

BPS envisions future of education, school facilities pg 3

A&E

business news

SASHA LANE WOWS IN FILM ‘AMERICAN HONEY’ pg 27

LaborX startup helps firms recruit often-overlooked talent pg 12

plus On exhibit: Photos by Carrie Mae Weems pg 25 BAMS Fest pg 25 Postmodern Jukebox at the Wang Theatre pg 26 Thursday, October 13, 2016 • FREE • GREATER BOSTON’S URBAN NEWS SOURCE SINCE 1965 • CELEBRATING 50 YEARS

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Appeals court backs cops in hair test case Court finds hair tests discriminate against blacks with false positives By BANNER STAFF

A group of black Boston cops fired for drug use after what they said was a flawed hair test won an important legal victory last Friday when the Massachusetts Appeals Court upheld an earlier ruling reinstating them with back pay and benefits. The ruling is the latest chapter in a decade-long legal battle that pitted the six black officers against the police department and its use of the controversial test. After an exhaustive inquiry on the scientific reliability of the “hair test,” the court found that a positive result was not conclusive indication of voluntary drug ingestion and may actually be due to contamination through environmental exposure. The court found that the risk of a false positive test was great enough to require additional evidence before terminating an officer. With respect to the six reinstated officers, the Appeals Court agreed that additional evidence clearly outweighed the flawed hair test result.

Discrimination complaint

Five reinstated officers — Ronnie Jones, Richard Beckers, Walter Washington, George Downing and Shawn Harris — are African-Americans who are also challenging the hair test on racial discrimination grounds in a separate federal lawsuit filed by the Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights and Economic

Justice on behalf of the individual officers and the Massachusetts Association of Minority Law Enforcement Officers (MAMLEO). “The City of Boston has been fighting for years to defend a scientifically unreliable and discriminatory drug-screening vehicle that resulted in the wrongful termination of a disproportionate number of African-American police officers,” said Iván Espinoza-Madrigal, the executive director of the Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights and Economic Justice in a press statement. A Boston Police Department spokesman did not respond to a request for comment on this story.

Disparate impact

In the discrimination case, a federal court found that the hair test has a statistically disparate racial impact. In 2006, for example, 71 percent of positive results were generated by tests of African American officers. The discrimination case remains pending in the Federal Court of Appeals for the First Circuit. “Diversity in police ranks is a key component of community representation and accountability,” said Espinoza-Madrigal. “Our communities are safer and stronger when minority officers have an equal opportunity to serve and when police departments reflect the neighborhoods they serve. Nevertheless, the City of Boston continues to defend its

See HAIR TEST, page 8

BANNER PHOTO

A BCLA parent was among many to speak during public testimony. She said she is not against charter schools but against the financial impact charter expansion would have on district schools.

School Committee acts against charter cap lift More charters harm city budget, committee says By JULE PATTISON-GORDON

The Boston School Committee voted unanimously last week to pass a resolution against the ballot question to expand charter schools in Massachusetts. Supporters of lifting the cap gathered before the meeting in the Bolling Building. At the base of the grand staircase, they distributed blue “Great Schools Massachusetts”

T-shirts; upstairs, those against lifting the cap cracked open boxes of yellow “No on 2” T-shirts. During testimony, many parents lamented the division the ballot question had created between them, acknowledging everyone’s desire to do best by their children and saying the dispute had diverted valuable time and energy from discussing important school matters. Supporters on both sides advocated for the quality of their

schools and presented opposing views of the impact of charter expansion on the Boston Public Schools budget. Voting for the resolution, School Committee members declared charter expansion a threat not only to BPS finances, but to the entire municipal budget. “Uncapped charter growth is bad for finances,” said School

See CHARTERS, page 32

Tiny homes coming to Roxbury? City seeking affordable options By YAWU MILLER

BANNER PHOTO

The city’s Urban Housing Unit was stationed at a vacant lot on Blue Hill Avenue

The Urban Housing Unit landed in Roxbury last week, occupying a vacant lot on the corner of Blue Hill Avenue and Gaston Street, with the rectangular white unit’s front door facing the street. Visitors could proceed through the glass entryway into the bedroom of the 380-square-foot dwelling, past a small bathroom and into the kitchen/dining/living room area — and be done with the tour

in mere seconds. While the tour is as short as the unit is small, the experiment, developed by the Mayor’s Housing Innovation Lab, raises big questions about housing policy and the kinds of renters and buyers for whom city officials are planning. Chief among them: Are neighborhood residents ready for the micro-unit approach to housing that has spurred the construction of compact units in Boston’s super-heated Waterfront market? City planners say the

ON THE WEB Urban Housing Unit: www.liveuhu.com/

why#why-should-communities-support-moreuhus-in-new-projects See also Tom Acitelli, “Boston micro-apartments: a brief history of the trend,” Boston. curbed.com, Sept. 19, 2016 at http://boston. curbed.com/2016/9/19/12970722/boston-tiny-apartments-history micro-unit, which they currently are displaying in different locations around the city, could help solve the pressing need for low-cost housing in the city. The

See URBAN HOUSING, page 14


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