From the
New York Times:
The New York Fire Department office that handles discrimination complaints shrank during a period when the federal government was suing the agency on the grounds that its hiring tests were biased, an assistant fire commissioner testified in United States District Court on Monday.
Over the objections of the city, the assistant commissioner, Lyndelle Phillips, who leads the Equal Employment Opportunity Office in the department, was called to testify by Judge Nicholas G. Garaufis in Brooklyn. During more than two hours on the witness stand, she described how resources in her office had dwindled since 2006.
Read more
HERE.
From the
Tulsa World:
A federal judge has ordered further briefing in a lawsuit alleging that Mayor Dewey Bartlett violated the rights of Tulsa firefighters when he ordered them not to campaign in municipal elections.
U.S. District Judge Gregory Frizzell heard arguments Thursday regarding the firefighters' union's request for a preliminary injunction that would let them campaign in upcoming municipal elections.
The judge gave the parties until Tuesday to submit proposed findings to the court.
The lawsuit, filed by the Tulsa Fire Fighters Association Local 176 and four of its officials against the city and Bartlett, alleges that the mayor's order violates not only the U.S. Constitution but also the Oklahoma Constitution, at least two state laws and at least one city ordinance.
Tulsa Fire Capt. Chad Miller, the only witness called to the stand by either side, said that with primary elections set for Sept. 13, every day firefighters are not allowed to campaign on behalf of candidates they support "is a day we can't get back," he said.
From the
Hartford Courant:
Seven years after suing New Haven in a reverse discrimination case that was affirmed by the U.S. Supreme Court, 20 white firefighters who claimed their promotions were blocked by city affirmative action policy were poised to settle for about $2 million Thursday.
A city official said New Haven would formally announce a settlement later today. Karen Lee Torre, the Branford attorney who sued and won the case at the nation’s highest court in 2009, was not immediately available Thursday morning.
Although the firefighters, one of whom was both white and Hispanic, won at the Supreme Court, additional issues continued to be litigated as recently as last week in U.S. District Court in New Haven. Offers of settlement filed by the city late Wednesday appear to have ended the case.
From
The Chicago Sun-Times:
The Chicago Fire Department must hire 111 bypassed black firefighter candidates — and distribute “tens of millions of dollars” in damages to 6,000 others who will never get that chance — a federal appeals court ruled Friday, upholding a landmark ruling.
Last year, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled, in a 9-to-0 decision, that, contrary to the city’s contention, African-American candidates hadn’t waited too long before filing a lawsuit that accused the city of discriminating against them for the way it handled a 1995 firefighter’s entrance exam.
On Friday, the Seventh U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals affirmed that ruling and sent the case back to the trial court to implement what it called the “hiring remedy” the city has been stalling.
Read the entire story
HERE.
