Oregon enacted the first law allowing lawsuits against racially biased 911 callers
Evidence
On Monday, June 3, 2019, Oregon State Senate passed a bill that would allow individuals who are victims of racially biased emergency calls to sue those who make these calls with discriminatory intentions (Lockhart, 2019). The initiative comes almost a year after Janelle Bynum, a member of the Oregon House of Representatives, had someone call 911 on her as she campaigned in her district. The bill would allow victims to sue the callers for as much as $250, so long as they can prove that the call was made with the intention to discriminate. This type of bill, which is likely to be adopted by other states as well, is a response to many recent instances in which White civilians have called 911 on minorities for reasons that remain unclear. — Joseph Avery, Jim Sidanius, Joel Cooper, Gregory Davis, Amanda N., Bias in the Law, 260
Categorization
Category: Factual Claims
- QUESTION: Did other states subsequently adopt similar ‘racially biased 911 call’ suit laws, and did any of them hold up to First Amendment challenges?
- CANDY: A $250 damages cap for racial-bias 911 calls is a striking, tweetable detail — punitive in symbol, almost nothing in money.
Related
- Oregon passed the first anti-racial-profiling-call statute in 2019 (similarity 0.91)
- Racially motivated emergency calls constitute a recognized legal harm requiring remedy (similarity 0.90)
- Bias-based 911 calls often bypass racial intent and evade legal remedy. (similarity 0.81)