Pro Bono

A Victory for African American Secret Service Agents

A team in our Washington, D.C. office recently secured a victory for African American Secret Service agents in a long-running lawsuit against the Secret Service. In a unanimous ruling by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit, it was decided the case will proceed to trial as a class action.

The appellate ruling comes after a federal district court found the plaintiffs had presented significant evidence that the Secret Service engaged in a pattern and practice of discrimination in promotions of African Americans and that the claims of 120 current and former agents should be tried as a class action. In denying the Secret Service’s request for appeal, the D.C. Circuit squarely rejected each of the Secret Service’s arguments and found that the lower court “applied the correct standards” in certifying the class. The court’s decision paves the way for this more than a decade-old case to proceed toward a final resolution.

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