Mr. Bush has said the bill would force companies to quietly adopt unlawful hiring and promotion quotas in order to avoid costly lawsuits.

The Court attempts to defend this one-for-one promotion quota as merely affectng the speed by which the department attains the goal of 25 percent black representation in the upper ranks.

It does not require hiring or promotion quotas.

The other would include language underscoring that "nothing" in the law "shall be construed to require an employer to adopt hiring or promotion quotas."

They said the legislation also would have established an unwanted precedent, since there are no promotion quotas for other police ranks.

She said, "legislated hiring and promotion quotas are unnecessary, unfair and ineffective."

Indeed, diversity-training seminars are increasingly derided as window-dressing, and hiring and promotion quotas are under growing attack as unfair or counterproductive.

Indeed, when the discrimination has been particularly egregious, courts have required companies to impose rigid hiring or promotion quotas to increase the number of minority or female employees or supervisors.

The above reservation should also be made applicable to promotion quota at all levels.