Cedar Rapids settles lawsuit over racial requirement to serve on Citizen Review Board for $10,000

CEDAR RAPIDS — The city of Cedar Rapids will pay $10,000 to settle a lawsuit over a rule — since put on hold — requiring that five of the nine-member board that provides oversight of police identify as people of color.

Kevin Wymore, a white man from Cedar Rapids, had sued the city and Mayor Tiffany O’Donnell, asserting that the policy about who can serve on the Citizen Review Board is racially discriminatory.

The board formed in 2021 after racial justice advocates, led by the nonprofit Advocates for Social Justice, pushed for the city to strengthen civilian oversight of local law enforcement after George Floyd’s murder by Minneapolis police in May 2020. The panel reviews citizen complaints and quarterly reports from the police chief, and overall works to foster improved relationships between the police and the community.

U.S. District Court Judge C.J. Williams in October issued a preliminary injunction to bar enforcement of the policy pending the outcome of Wymore’s lawsuit.

Wymore is a retired Wisconsin public health analyst with a master’s degree in public policy who says he volunteers to teach English as a second language to immigrants from West Africa. He applied twice for a spot on the Citizen Review Board and was not appointed by the mayor or City Council.

“There are no facts that show white citizens are unaffected by police brutality and misconduct, are not concerned about the issue, or are unqualified or biased and cannot review complaints,” Williams wrote in his October ruling. “The provision reflects an inherent belief that only people of color care about the issues facing people of color and that white people do not care about people of color. That is a presumption based on bias.”

The goal of having a racial requirement, social justice advocates said at the time, was to address systemic racism in law enforcement by including the voices of marginalized populations who are disproportionately affected by policing.

In Iowa, the ACLU in 2020 reported that a Black person is 7.3 times more likely to be arrested than a white person for possessing marijuana, even though both groups use marijuana at about the same rate. And a Black person in Iowa is 11 times more likely to be incarcerated than a white person even though just about 4 percent of Iowans are Black.

After Williams issued an injunction, the City Council in November amended the ordinance creating the Citizen Review Board to eliminate a requirement for a specific number of people who identify as people of color. Now, it states the mayor and City Council, who appoint members to the panel, shall “strive to include members from a diverse background,” including people who identify as a racial or ethnic minority.

When the council signed off on the amended ordinance, several council members stated that their commitment to appointing a diverse board that reflects the community wouldn’t waver despite the change to policy language.

In making appointments to the board, the mayor and council “shall ensure that members represent a diversity of age, socioeconomic status, gender, geographic residence and work experience,” the ordinance states.

The panel, the ordinance says, shall be made up of:

Currently, the following individuals serve on the board:

The vacancy is expected to be filled as part of the city’s process of reviewing applications and making appointments to boards and commissions at the July 25 council meeting. This slot is for a member of the public not based on the required professional and volunteer affiliations, according to the city’s staff liaison to the board.

According to minutes of the panel’s April meeting, there was a discussion of member commitment “due to attendance issues, turn-overs, and quorum issues,” meaning the board has struggled at times to convene the minimum number of members required to hold the meeting. This discussion came as the board looked ahead to the need to fill two vacancies at the time.

Wymore’s lawyer was Alan Ostergren, a former Muscatine County prosecutor who now is president and chief counsel for the Kirkwood Institute in Des Moines, a conservative public-interest law firm that focuses on economic and property rights, constitutional governance and separation of powers. Ostergren also has represented the state in legal fights over restricting abortion in Iowa.

The $10,000 settlement was made payable to the Kirkwood Institute and covers Wymore’s legal fees and costs.

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