Roughly 5,200 Black and Hispanic aspiring and former teachers will receive a massive $1.8 billion payout from New York City (NYC) after city officials decided to stop fighting a nearly three-decade-long discrimination lawsuit alleging that the Liberal Arts and Sciences Test (LAST) used for licensing teachers is biased against non-Whites.
The largest-ever legal payout to date from the Big Apple, the settlement is expected to result in several hundred more large financial awards in the future, according to the New York Post.
At least 225 people failed the LAST between 1994 and 2014, according to Manhattan federal court records. Each of them will receive at least $1 million in settlement money.
The court found that the exam violated civil rights laws, resulting in more than 90 percent of White test takers passing the 80-question multiple choice and essay qualification exam between March 1993 and June 1995. During the same time period, just 52 percent of Black applicants passed the exam, while Hispanics had just a 50 percent passing rate.
As usual, taxpayers will foot the bill for this anti-White ruling
In addition to the $1.8 billion in settlement money, plaintiffs are also expected to collect additional money in the form of health insurance and pension checks for all the time that they did not work but could have had they been able to pass the "racist" test.
Sixty-four-year-old Herman Grim, one of the black applicants who failed the test, is expected to receive the largest payout of more than $2 million. Though Grim was unable to provide any tangible examples as to why the test was racist, nor could he even say how many times he took the certification exam and failed, he will still receive this large lump sum.
Grim will receive more than $1.5 million in back pay for time never clocked, lost interest accrued, and various other forms of compensation.
Other cash winners include 62-year-old Andrea Durant of Center Moriches on Long Island who will receive just under $2 million. Then there is the estate of Kathy Faye Bailey of Queens who will receive just under $1.9 million.
Based on an agreement that was forged in November 2021 during then-Mayor Bill de Blasio's reign, NYC agreed to set aside more than $1.8 billion in funds to pay off these and the rest of the plaintiffs through 2028.
So far, more than $750 million in judgments have been awarded to 2,959 of the 5,200 plaintiffs. Judgments range from just a few hundred dollars to more than $2 million depending on how far back each plaintiff took and failed the test.
The city is also responsible for the plaintiffs' lawyer fees, which last year alone totaled more than $43 million.
By the looks of it, the settlement is just reparations in disguise. Non-Whites are demanding free money because of "White supremacy," and because they were unable to get the money they covet some other way they resorted to suing the Big Apple over a licensing exam that they claim is racist.
"It's a struggle to explain how NYC could spend $38,000 a year per kid with such a poor return, but decisions like this really help people understand where all that money's going," complained Ken Girardin, a fellow and labor specialist for the conservative government watchdog group Empire Center for Public Policy about the settlement.
Grim, meanwhile, is overjoyed at striking gold, telling the media that he is looking forward to paying off the debt he has accrued on his Queens home and credit cards.
"I can't tell you how many times I took them," Grim says about taking and failing the test. "A lot! A lot!"
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