Judge reprimands city over racial bias in firefighter hiring
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Posted By: How May I Help You NC on August 31, 2011 NEW YORK, Aug 25 (Reuters) - New York City "does not have a good track record" of addressing racial bias in its recruiting of firefighters, a federal judge said Thursday during a hearing over how far the court should go to remedy the problem. After a series of bench trials earlier this month, U.S. District Judge Nicholas Garaufis is preparing to rule on what the city must do to address his previous findings that past firefighter hiring exams treated black and Hispanic candidates unfairly. The Vulcan Society, an organization representing black firefighters, is seeking a broad and enforceable mandate that their lawyer, Richard Levy, said would force the city to take concrete steps to "address the glaring imbalance in the racial composition of the fire department." According to statistics presented by the plaintiffs, blacks and Hispanics comprise 25 and 27 percent, respectively, of New York City's population, but as of 2007 they made up only 3.4 percent and 6.7 percent of the city's firefighter ranks. Levy asked the court to impose a goal of recruiting 35 percent of its new firefighter applicants from the city's black population, and to direct the department to prioritize hiring 293 black and Hispanic candidates who already took the exam. That number represents the additional blacks and Hispanics who would have been hired had they scored as well as whites did on past exams, according to plaintiffs' calculations. The firefighters are also seeking clearer guidelines for the post-exam recruitment processes, such as explaining why candidates are rejected and requiring informal communications about the hiring process to be reported. Finally, the firefighters seek an independent monitor to address allegations of racial bias in the workplace, as well as compensatory damages. A HANGMAN'S NOOSE Much of the testimony during the trial focused on allegations of unfair treatment throughout the fire department, from recruitment and promotions to day-to-day activities. During one of the trials, New York fire captain Paul Washington, who is black, said he had heard racial epithets casually tossed around all-white firehouses. A former New York firefighter, Lanaird Granger, who is also black, said he once discovered a hangman's noose on his gear in a Brooklyn firehouse. An attorney for the city, Patricia Miller, said allegations of pervasive racism against black firefighters were based on a handful of "isolated incidents" and that the city should be allowed to continue steps it has taken on its own since 2001 to increase the number of black and Hispanic firefighters without court supervision. The most recent recruitment efforts have brought in an applicant pool that is 47 percent minority, she said. "The fire department believes it has made efforts to improve diversity," Miller said, adding that a court-appointed monitor may have a negative impact on recruitment officers' morale. But Garaufis said he feared that without a defined and enforceable remedial plan from the city, the parties could wind up back in court. "The city does not have a good track record," he said. "There are ways in which New York City could have forestalled some portion of this unpleasant litigation and paved the way for improvements in recruitment of minority candidates," Garaufis said. "It could have been done, but it wasn't." For the U.S.: Assistant U.S. attorneys Elliot Schachner, Michael Goldberger and David Eskew of the U.S. Attorney's Office, Eastern District of New York; and Eric Bachman, Sharon Seeley, Allan Townsend, Barbara Schwabauer, Jennifer Swedish, Meredith Burrell and Varda Hussain of the U.S. Department of Justice. For the Vulcan Society: Richard Levy, Dana Lossia and Robert Stroup of Levy Ratner; Anjana Samant and Darius Charney of the Center for Constitutional Rights; and Judith Scolnick of Scott and Scott. For New York City: Assistant Corporation Counsel Georgia Pestana, William Fraenkel, Edward Sample, James Lemonedes, Kami Barker, Kathleen Comfrey, Patricia Miller and Vivien Ranada. (Reporting by Jessica Dye) Source: http://bit.ly/p9a6HI If you enjoyed this article, Join HBCU CONNECT today for similar content and opportunities via email! |
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