Des Moines schools fight suit over criminal background checks district is now reconsidering

In 1995, 19-year-old Vernon "Keith" Robinson made an ill-thought choice that followed him for years — pulling a police officer into Des Moines' Birdland Pool after the officer had ordered him to get out of the water.

He pleaded guilty to misdemeanor assault — followed by other run-ins with the law. In 2014, nearly 20 years after his first arrest and 12 years after his last, Robinson failed a Des Moines Public Schools' background check for a paid position as an assistant varsity girls basketball coach at Roosevelt High School.

Robinson said the district never considered his rehabilitative efforts or letters of support submitted from staff and community members, even though he was already a volunteer coach for the team.

That lack of consideration for applicants' efforts to rehabilitate themselves is at the heart of a long-running class action lawsuit involving 90 Black job applicants who are suing the Des Moines school district for discriminatory hiring practices related to background checks.

The district recently changed its long-standing background policy when Des Moines Public Schools' new superintendent, Ian Roberts, announced in October that officials were reconsidering some past candidates who were initially rejected based on background checks.

District officials have not said whether the change and the ongoing lawsuit are connected, and the district continues to litigate the lawsuit.

Robinson says he struggled for months with depression over the employment rejection.

Related: Des Moines Public Schools changes hiring practice to reconsider people with criminal records

"I didn't go to games for a minute," Robinson said. "I didn't watch basketball games for a minute and the worst part about it is my daughter was in school playing basketball. So, not only did I let myself down, I let my daughter down."

Long-standing lawsuit challenges Des Moines school district policy

Starting with the swimming pool incident, Robinson’s background check revealed several misdemeanor convictions over the years, with the last occurring in 2002 for a concealed weapons charge.

That last arrest and conviction was a turning point for Robinson, who decided he needed to become a better role model for his five children. The offer of a paid coaching position at the school he graduated from felt like another step forward. After the district turned him away, he took his cause to the courts.

Robinson filed his suit in 2017, arguing the district’s policy against applicants or employees with non-job-related criminal records disproportionately impacted minority applicants without serving any “business necessity.” The complaint also accused the district of treating white employees with criminal records more favorably than Black employees and applicants.

The district has argued in court filings that Robinson has no case. In a 2020 motion for summary judgment, lawyers for the district argued that “exclusion from employment based on criminal history and nondisclosure is a legitimate reason for failure to hire,” and Robinson couldn’t prove a link between the district’s criminal history policies and a disparate impact on minority groups.

In an interview with the Des Moines Register, Robinson said he did not disclose two convictions because he believed they had dropped off his record after 10 years.

Related: Des Moines schools' first Black superintendent says leadership will be 'anchored in empathy'

The case has spent years bogged down in pretrial litigation, contesting whether the case should be certified as a class action for other former job applicants, among other legal issues.

Ultimately, the court agreed to let Robinson proceed with his case on behalf of all Black job applicants excluded by the district "without consideration to whether the policy … is job related" or for not adequately disclosing their prior convictions.

The court has denied motions from each side for summary judgment, clearing the way for the case to go to trial in May 2024. There have been no notable filings in the case since Roberts announced the change in policy last month.

"Because there is litigation related to this matter, on the advice of our legal counsel, we are not going to comment while it is pending," said Phil Roeder, the school district's spokesperson.

Roeder reiterated that people with criminal records have always been able to apply and a record does not automatically disqualify a candidate.

Lawsuit argues DMPS policy hurts district diversity

Des Moines Public Schools, and school districts across the country, have long struggled with a lack of diversity among teachers and other staff. Two-thirds of Des Moines' roughly 30,000 students are people of color while approximately 19% of the district's 4,887 staff members are people of color.

Statewide more than 95% of Iowa's teachers identify as white, according 2020-21 National Center for Education Statistics.

Related: U.S. appeals court rules Iowa school district's gender identity 'respect' rule too vague

Attorney Leonard Bates, representing Robinson and the other plaintiffs, said the district's long-standing policy toward criminal records has kept many capable Black candidates from joining the district's ranks.

"I've heard from so many class members … that they couldn't be any happier with Superintendent Roberts and his announcement," Bates said after the news broke in early October. "We've waited too long for this to happen."

Ex-mentor: 'I felt a lot of shame' after rejection for job

Hundreds of people — ranging from potential teachers to custodial staff — were impacted by the previous hiring practices, Bates said. The background checks disproportionately impacted Black applicants who made up a small portion of the overall applicant pool.

For two years, plaintiff Courtney Smith mentored students in writing and performing poetry for the district's afterschool Half-Pints Poetry program. When applying for the program's director position, she disclosed an expunged 2012 assault conviction and misdemeanor conviction for driving with a suspended license. The assault charges stemmed from a fight with a cousin.

In recent years, the Half-Pints Poetry program name was changed to SAY, which stands for Serving All Youth, Roeder said.

Smith provided additional information about the expunged case at the request of human resources. She was not asked about her rehabilitative efforts, which included voluntary in-patient rehabilitation and therapy for alcohol addiction, and going back to school.

"When I got the news that HR said that I was unemployable, I felt a lot of shame that I wasn't going to be able to recover from my past," she said. "That it was always going to haunt me."

Related: Books challenged in Iowa schools frequently tell stories of LGBTQ, Black and brown people

In an October interview with the Register, Roberts said he had already requested human resources hire several individuals who previously applied to work for Iowa's largest and most diverse school district.

Attorneys for the lawsuit say some of the plaintiffs plan to apply for jobs with the district again, but Robinson remains cautious.

Since 2014, he earned a sports management degree, worked with special education students and as a substitute teacher, and is still a basketball coach. Despite these positives, he believes losing out on the Roosevelt job set his coaching career back years. He still hopes to one day coach basketball at a historically Black college or university.

"I'm still fighting to try to get things right to this day," Robinson said.

Samantha Hernandez covers education for the Register. Reach her at (515) 851-0982 or svhernandez@gannett.com. Follow her on Twitter at @svhernandez or Facebook at facebook.com/svhernandezreporter.

William Morris covers courts for the Des Moines Register. He can be contacted at wrmorris2@registermedia.com, 715-573-8166 or on Twitter at @DMRMorris.

This article originally appeared on Des Moines Register: Des Moines schools background checks subject of long-running lawsuit