White man who filed discrimination suit settles case, walks away with $100
David Blaska's attorneys received the other $46,000 awarded in the settlement with the city of Madison, Wisconsin.
A conservative blogger who claimed he was excluded from a position on a Madison, Wisconsin, police board because he’s white has received a $100 settlement in the case.
In addition, officials in Madison say racial quotas would no longer be used to make up its Police Civilian Oversight Board, The Wisconsin State Journal reported Tuesday.
On June 30, 2021, the Wisconsin Institute for Law and Liberty filed a federal lawsuit on behalf of David Blaska. He had applied to become a member of the oversight board but wasn’t selected.
The WILL suit said that nine of the 11 seats were reserved for six Black members, one Asian, one “Latinx,” and one Native American, with an additional stipulation that at least 50 percent of the board be made up of Blacks.
Blaska, in U.S. District Court in the Western District of Wisconsin, called the racial quotas “unconstitutional,” claiming that they violated the Constitution’s equal protection clause.
Madison elected to drop the racial quotas language back in May and changed it to say the city would “strive to include members from a diverse background,” according to The Wisconsin State Journal. Wisconsin Municipal Mutual Insurance Co., the state’s insurers, also paid WILL a $46,100 settlement, of which $46,000 went to the attorneys, and $100 in damages went to Blaska, The Journal reported.
Madison City Attorney Mike Haas said in a statement the “city’s goal of including a racially diverse membership for the Civilian Oversight Board is a legal and a laudable goal.”
Hass also noted that the makeup of the board hasn’t changed.
“In the interest of resolving the legal dispute, the City revised the ordinance to ensure that its goal of racial diversity was not overshadowed by the language choices in the documents that created the Board,” his statement said, still ensuring “a diverse representation of Madison residents will be involved in civilian oversight of the Madison Police Department.”
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