Justice Department Drops Discrimination Case Against Md. State Police

BALTIMORE — New leadership at the U.S. Department of Justice dropped a case last week that accused Maryland State Police of violating federal employment discrimination laws through the statewide law enforcement agency’s hiring practices.

Federal prosecutors dropped the case as President Donald Trump’s administration moves to end several anti-discrimination lawsuits through the Justice Department’s civil rights section.

The probe of the state police’s hiring practices, which federal prosecutors said violated Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, led to a tentative agreement in the final months of President Joe Biden’s administration. U.S. District Judge Richard D. Bennett had not yet given his final approval for the consent decree, though Maryland officials had already approved a $2.75 million settlement after the two-year investigation concluded.

The Justice Department said last October that the state police’s written exam, the Police Officer Selection Test, disproportionately excluded Black trooper candidates. The lawsuit also alleged that the agency used a physical fitness test that excluded female candidates. In addition to settlement payments, state police had agreed to relax their testing standards as part of the consent decree.

Bennett, who had signed off on a provisional consent decree, was set to consider final approval at a hearing in mid-March. Federal prosecutors asked him last week to delay that hearing so that the Justice Department’s Civil Rights section could decide whether it would continue litigating the case in light of several orders from the Trump administration. The next day, they said in a court filing that they were dropping the case.

“The United States has determined not to proceed further in this matter,” the Wednesday filing says. “The United States no longer seeks relief that would require Maryland Department of State Police to prioritize candidates for police officers based in any way on race.”

The federal government’s case came after another discrimination lawsuit accused state police of a longstanding pattern of discrimination through discipline, retaliation and the denial of promotions. That class-action lawsuit is set to continue, with discovery ongoing and the deadline to certify a class of plaintiffs currently set for late September.

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