Blake v. Los Angeles Police Dept.

In 1973, Detective Sergeant Fanchon Blake was nearing the end of her 25-year career in the Los Angeles Police Department. But she had some unfinished business to attend to and needed the services of the Center. She wanted to sue the Department for sex discrimination. 

Despite her experience, including a stint in the criminal intelligence service of the Army, Blake was prohibited from rising above the rank of Sergeant solely because she was a woman. The Department had been relegating the few women officers — 150 out of some 7,000 — to desk jobs and a few to specialized domestic-related police work. In early 1972, Congress extended Title VII’s prohibitions on employment discrimination to government agencies. LAPD responded by abandoning its prior “policeman” and”policewoman” classifications. Instead, it had only an ostensibly unisex “police oficer” classification. But, at the same time, LAPD imposed a new height requirement of 5’7” and a rigorous physical abilities exam. Many fewer women than men could meet the new requirements (95 percent of women could not meet the 5’7” height requirement, while only 32 percent of men could not; 50 percent of women could not meet the strength test but less than 3 percent of men failed.)

In August, 1973, the Center, with Blake as lead plaintiff, filed a lawsuit under the federal Civil Rights Act charging the Department with sex discrimination. In the previous four years some 4,500 women had applied for jobs with the Department. None had been hired. 

The Department responded by shifting Blake from the forgery unit to a seat behind a reception desk. "I was given the silent treatment by both men and women," said Blake. 

Within a year, Blake left the Department to become security chief with an aerospace company but she would still have her day in court. 

During the litigation, CLIPI attorneys had to overcome fear and folklore concerning the ability of women, without the size, strength or "command presence" traditionally associated with police work, to perform effectively. CLIPI filed over 600 legal documents with the court and took over 50 depositions from police officials in other cities concerning the performance of women officers.

Federal District Court Judge Jesse Curtis upheld the new LAPD job height and strength test requirements. He regarded it as simply “obvious” that taller, stronger individuals would make better police officers in physical confrontations, and opined that no “sane” police chief would dispatch an average group of women officers to contain a public uprising such as the “Watts Riots,” when an average group of mail officers was available. The Ninth Circuit reversed. Writing for a unanimous court, Judge Shirley Hufstedler denounced use of “archaic and overbroad generalizations,” such as gender-based stereotypes, as an “inaccurate proxy for other germaine bases of classification.” She further determined that LAPD has failed to establish that the new height and strength tests provided only a “modest correlation” to safe and efficient job performance, not that they were “so intimately related to job performance as to be a business necessity.”

Following the Ninth Circuit’s remand of the proceedings, in a subsequent March 1981 consent decree, LAPD agreed to eliminate its exclusionary policies. The minimum height requirement was reduced to 5 feet. The ban on promotions beyond Sergeant was lifted. The Department agreed to hire women in sufficient numbers "to eliminate the effects of past discrimination." A $2 million relief fund was set up for victims of past discriminatory practices. The Blake consent decree included the largest back pay award negotiated to that time in an employment discrimination case in California. The decree also set a 25 percent goal for hiring qualified women until they constituted 20 percent of all sworn officers. (When the case was filed, women officers comprised barely 2% of LAPD's workforce.) Similar goals for minority hiring and for promotions of women and minorities were included.

Blake, by then retired and living in Washington State, flew down for the final court proceedings. From the steps of the courthouse, she told reporters, "I stand today recognized as a first-class citizen and I'm proud."

The Blake case marked a watershed victory in the women’s employment discrimination field.  Gender stereotypes could no longer be used as the basis for discrimination against women, even in employment fields such as police work, where arguably a large muscular masculine body frame would be an asset.  As the Los Angeles Times put it in an editorial on the Blake case, “Danger is unrelated to gender or race.  It is time to redress a long-standing inequity, rather than resist inevitable change.”

Ten years later, in June 1990, Blake was invited to participate in LAPD’s “Women’s Honor Day” celebrating the fact that the number of female police officers had increased from a little more than 100 at the time of the settlement to more than 1,000 (almost 15% of the total force).  The Women’s Honor celebration showcased women officers in all LAPD assignments - bomb squad, motorcycle patrol, and high–ranking captains and lieutenants, and many of the female officers personally thanked Detective Blake for her role in securing their jobs. Chief Darryl Gates conceded five times that he had been wrong, and that the LAPD was a better police department with women on the force. 

Blake reminisced that, when she became lead plaintiff in the case, she had been removed from her regular assignments and she even feared for her safety. But, she reflected, “to correct and change the system, one person had to step forward and invoke the law.” "The doors have all been unlocked," Blake told the gathering, "I finally feel I have been accepted back into the department."

In related litigation throughout the 1970’s and ‘80’s, CLIPI sued numerous public agencies in Southern California for alleged employment discrimination against women and minorities.  In one such case, for example, after a full trial, the Los Angeles County Fire Departments was found to employ only nine African-American fire fighters on its force of more than 1,900 officers.  Davis, and cases against the Santa Ana Police and Fire Department, the City of Torrance Police Department, the Pasadena Police and Fire Departments, the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power and the Los Angeles Unified School District resulted in substantial back pay awards and potent hiring orders setting forth goals and timetables for future compliance. Another series of employment discrimination lawsuits against large grocery store chains obtained thousands of good paying jobs for minorities.