Madison's insurer pays $46,100 to settle discrimination suit over new police oversight board

Aug. 30—The city of Madison's insurer paid $46,100 to settle a lawsuit brought by a local conservative blogger alleging he was passed over for membership on a new police oversight board because he is white.

The City Council in May also eliminated racial quotas from the ordinance governing the city's Police Civilian Oversight Board. As created in September 2020, the 11-member board was required to have members from each of five demographics — the Black, Asian, Latino, Native American and LGBTQ communities. The council also adopted a recommendation dictating that at least half the board's members be Black.

After the lawsuit was filed, the language was changed to say the board will "strive to include members from a diverse background."

The conservative law firm Wisconsin Institute for Law and Liberty, which brought the case, sent the Wisconsin State Journal the settlement at the newspaper's request on Monday. The documents, dated mid-May, are not included with court filings. The city admitted no liability in the case.

The Wisconsin Municipal Mutual Insurance Co. paid WILL $46,000 in attorneys' fees and plaintiff David Blaska $100 in damages.

Former council members Rebecca Kemble, Shiva Bidar and Donna Moreland crafted the original language for the oversight board and included in their recommendations a request from local social-justice group Freedom Inc. that half the board members be Black.

Blaska applied for a seat on the board and was rejected and WILL sued in late June 2021, alleging the ordinance violated the U.S. Constitution's equal-protection clause.

In a statement, Madison city attorney Mike Haas said the "city's goal of including a racially diverse membership for the Civilian Oversight Board is a legal and a laudable goal.

"In reviewing the language highlighted in the Blaska lawsuit and in the interest of resolving the legal dispute, the City revised the ordinance to ensure that its goal of racial diversity was not overshadowed by the language choices in the documents that created the Board," he said. "The current makeup of the Board has not changed as a result of the lawsuit and the ordinance continues to suggest that the Council seek to ensure that a diverse representation of Madison residents will be involved in civilian oversight of the Madison Police Department."

Bidar, the associate dean for diversity and equity transformation at UW Health, and Moreland, the deputy secretary for the state Department of Safety and Professional Services, did not reply to requests for comment.

Attempts to reach Kemble, the president of the board for the group Toward Freedom, via Facebook and Twitter were not successful. Freedom Inc. also did not respond to a request for comment.

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