Victory! SJC Lets Favorable Ruling Over Officers’ Drug Tests Stand

Police Accountability, Racial Justice

On November 30, 2016, Massachusetts’ highest court let stand a ruling that the Boston Police Department (BPD) was wrong when it fired six officers after their hair tested positive for drugs, according to the Boston Globe.

In this case, the state’s Civil Service Commission had found that BPD’s hair tests for drugs are not reliable enough to support terminating an employee without additional evidence. This conclusion was supported by a favorable appeals court ruling in October. This week, the Supreme Judicial Court declined BPD’s request to review the lower court ruling.

The hair test is also being separately challenged by the Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights in federal court on the basis that it is discriminatory because Black officers’ hair texture makes them more susceptible to tests that wrongly identify drug use. Five of the officers whose jobs are set to be restored under the appeals court ruling are Black men.

“This is now a strong favorable finding,” said Ivan Espinoza-Madrigal, executive director of the Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights and Economic Justice to the Globe. “This will support many of the arguments we have been making concerning the inherent unreliability of drug screening through the hair test.”

The full Globe article is available here: https://www.bostonglobe.com/metro/2016/12/01/sjc-affirms-ruling-that-officers-were-wrongly-fired-over-hair-tests-for-drug/H54A8PNukvRbRZ0pM8oauO/story.html