After receiving a contingent job offer as a bus operator with the Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority (WMATA) in 2013, Erick Little disclosed information about a 1987 drug conviction. Little would have been just 19 at the time of the 26-year-old drug conviction, but the job offer still was rescinded. African Americans who have faced a long history of racially discriminatory law enforcement practices, as well as those returning home from prison, often find themselves up against “collateral consequences.” In July 2014, a class action lawsuit was filed on behalf of Little and eight others by the Washington Lawyer’s Committee, the NAACP Legal Defense Fund and Arnold & Portner Kaye Scholer. This month, a DC federal judge certified three classes of about 2,000 African Americans who were impacted by WMATA’s discriminatory policy.
