Jones v. City of Boston

The Boston Police Department (defendant) used a hair drug test that was reliable but could produce false positives by failing to distinguish drug consumption from mere environmental exposure, testing negative for over 99 percent of white subjects but only about 98 percent of black subjects. Despite an outside expert's 2003 proposal for a hair-test-plus-follow-up-urinalysis method — and despite the BPD already using urinalysis for officers suspended for drug use — the BPD continued relying solely on the hair test. Jones and other black officers (plaintiffs) who tested positive, and were fired or not hired as a result, sued for disparate-impact discrimination, arguing black hair is more likely to absorb environmental drugs, producing disproportionate false positives; the district court granted the BPD summary judgment.