DIY History | Transcribe | Campus Culture | Chicano conference programs and speeches, April 1973-May 1974 | 1974-04-14 Workshop IV, Chicano: Legal Process Page 4

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Chicano conference programs and speeches, April 1973-May 1974

1974-04-14 Workshop IV, Chicano: Legal Process Page 4

statement and wrote it up. We were lucky that a Chicano who was working on that commission, because he is the one we sent him to. He wrote it up, did some investigation and accepted the charge it could be discriminatory.

   The first thing they do is give you about a month, then they give you a preliminary hearing so that you don't have to take it to a regular hearing at that point. What we want is for the police department to lower the height to that minimum qualification as stated by the army as five foot two inches. We then got back to the case they gave us an open hearing; the open hearing comes around and the lawyers for the city ask for an extension because Attorney General Kleindienst made a statement that all height requirements are not meant to be discriminatory.

   So, we haven't even gotten to the first state court. They'll probably kick us out of state court or we will probably lose to the state court. So, this could take two or three years.

Pete Rael: I would like to address myself just one moment to the senorita y ahorita. It is true that I started out with the negative aspects. These are the negative aspects of the law. You can't get around a lot of these problems. You normally are going to be faced with the problems I have mentioned. The rest of the workshop will deal with the positive aspects. I just wanted to point out some of the negative aspects, the hassles, one can run into.

   We just pointed out a real life example of employment case. And stating just how long it could take to get this man employed. So the time element can be very serious problem. Some areas of the United States we have outright and blatant discrimination. These people are Mexicans. Don' hire them. They are not good for business. Of course now that we have our federal and state laws that are being brought to bear on many of these big employers the discrimination is becoming a little bit more subtle now. They are still accomplishing the same thing. They are still excluding minorities from getting jobs. Instead of being outright blatant they will come right out and say we don't want you. They will set up an educational requirement where you have to have a high school education or score a 90 percent on a test.

   I would like to have Professor Bartel to supplement anything I have to say in this area of testing and educational requirements. There is something that can be done about them. There are some supreme court cases which dame down, which you can use some of the principles.

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statement and wrote it up. We were lucky that a Chicano who was working on that commission, because he is the one we sent him to. He wrote it up, did some investigation and accepted the charge it could be discriminatory. The first thing they do is give you about a month, then they give you a preliminary hearing so that you don't have to take it to a regular hearing at that point. What we want is for the police department to lower the height to that minimum qualification as stated by the army as five foot two inches. We then got back to the case they gave us an open hearing; the open hearing comes around and the lawyers for the city ask for an extension because Attorney General Kleindienst made a statement that all height requirements are not meant to be discriminatory. So, we haven't even gotten to the first state court. They'll probably kick us out of state court or we will probably lose to the state court. So, this could take two or three years. Pete Rael: I would like to address myself just one moment to the senorita y ahorita. It is true that I started out with the negative aspects. These are the negative aspects of the law. You can't get around a lot of these problems. You normally are going to be faced with the problems I have mentioned. The rest of the workshop will deal with the positive aspects. I just wanted to point out some of the negative aspects, the hassles, one can run into. We just pointed out a real life example of employment case. And stating just how long it could take to get this man employed. So the time element can be very serious problem. Some areas of the United States we have outright and blatant discrimination. These people are Mexicans. Don' hire them. They are not good for business. Of course now that we have our federal and state laws that are being brought to bear on many of these big employers the discrimination is becoming a little bit more subtle now. They are still accomplishing the same thing. They are still excluding minorities from getting jobs. Instead of being outright blatant they will come right out and say we don't want you. They will set up an educational requirement where you have to have a high school education or score a 90 percent on a test. I would like to have Professor Bartel to supplement anything I have to say in this area of testing and educational requirements. There is something that can be done about them. There are some supreme court cases which dame down, which you can use some of the principles.