Awareness of the lack of diversity in police departments
across the nation has captured the public’s attention. For example, although
African Americans are 67% of the population in Ferguson, MO, only 6% of the
police force is African American. In Cleveland, OH, Blacks are 53% of the
population yet only 25% of the police force. In New York City, Blacks are 26%
of the population and 18% of the police force.
Lack of diversity in Fire Departments in large urban cities
is common. Statistics show under representation of minorities in New York City, Boston,
Chicago, Los Angeles, and Baltimore. In
2007, African Americans made up only 3% of New York’s Fire Department. The
Vulcan Society has been fighting for almost 75 years to open the doors of the New
York City Fire Department to black firefighters. The federal government sued
the city (United States of America and Vulcan Society Inc. vs. City of New
York) over fire department entrance exams they said discriminated against black
and Latino applicants. A group of black firefighters alleged the city had
intentionally discriminated against them, violating Title VII, the U.S.
Constitution and state law.
The law suit stated: "According to the most recent
census data, black residents make up 25.6% of New York City's population; when
this case was filed in 2007, black firefighters accounted for only 3.4% of the
Department's force. In other words, in a city of over eight million people, and
out of a force with 8,998 firefighters, there were only 303 black firefighters.
"This pattern of under representation has remained
essentially unchanged since at least the 1960s. While the city's other
uniformed services have made rapid progress integrating black members into
their ranks, the Fire Department has stagnated and at times retrogressed."
The lack of minorities in U.S. fire departments has been the
focus of many lawsuits. The last available national figures, from the 2000
census, show 8.4% of the nation's firefighting forces to be black and 8.6% to
be Latino. Blacks are 12.2% of the population; Latinos are roughly 16%.
However, other big cities have made much faster progress at diversifying their
ranks. More than half of the Philadelphia and Los Angeles fire departments
members are black or Latino.
U.S. District Judge Nicholas G. Garufis ordered New York
City to pay $128 million in to firefighters who allege the city used an
entrance exam that deliberately sought to keep African-Americans and Latino
Americans off the force. The judge also ordered the FDNY to hire 293 black and
Latino applicants.
Lawyers for the firefighters who sued said the decision
would mean payments to black and Latino applicants to the New York Fire
Department who were never hired or hired late from the 1999 and 2002
eligibility lists that resulted from exams given those years. Paul Washington,
past president of the Vulcan Society, said: “This is a great victory for those
who have been excluded from serving our city because of their race. We hope the
FDNY moves quickly to welcome the 293 Black and Latino applicants who are
entitled to be hired, and we look forward to serving with them."
For a detailed chronicle of the century fight for diversity in FDNY read "Fire Fight" by Ginger Adams Otis.
