Inside the admissions that sent this case straight back to trial
A New Jersey promotion dispute just made it easier for majority-group employees to sue for discrimination – and harder for employers to hide behind diversity.
On March 6, 2026, a federal appeals court handed down a ruling that employment lawyers and HR professionals across the country will be talking about for years. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit reversed a lower court ruling, finding that a white deputy police chief had enough evidence to take his racial and religious discrimination claims to a jury. In doing so, the court also predicted the end of a legal shield that New Jersey employers had relied on for more than three decades when facing so-called reverse discrimination claims.
The case began when Christopher Massey, a long-serving deputy police chief and acting Officer In Charge of the Bergenfield Police Department, was passed over for the permanent chief position in 2019. The job went to Mustafa Rabboh, an Arab-Muslim captain who joined the department eight years after Massey and had a disciplinary record that included seven internal affairs complaints and a four-day suspension. Massey sued the Borough and the five council members who voted for Rabboh, alleging that race and religion drove the decision.
What made the case remarkable was not the dispute itself, but the evidence behind it. The council members were reportedly inattentive during Massey's interview. One arrived...
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