Fire Critic An Unadulterated View of the Fire Service
This is follow up to my earlier post “Court rules for white firefighters over promotions“.
If you feel like it you can read the 93 page ruling that is sure to have some pretty thick legal mumbo jumbo in it here riccvsdestefano
I have learned a lot about this case today. FirefighterNation.com has an excellent post and comments here about the case including video.
First of all, when I was discussing this earlier I decided not to go too far in depth due to my lack of knowledge of the case…now I am an expert. Just kidding, but I have learned more including some “new math”.
Fifty-six firefighters passed the exams, including 41 whites, 22 blacks and 18 Hispanics. But of those, only 17 whites and two Hispanics could expect promotion.
41 + 22 + 18 = 56 according to the report. I am not sure where the discrepency is but apparently someone did not explain it well enough.
It will be interesting to see who gets promoted out of the 20. I don’t know how many promotions there are to be had, however I infer from the reports that no one had been promoted since this debacle started back in 2006.
In the end, I certainly hope that fire departments turn their fear from that of being sued by minorities to fear of being impartial to those who score well no matter what their race, creed, or sex is.
I know that in my department I have never seen anything that would make me raise an eyebrow about minorities not being promoted. However, I have seen all kinds of biased promotions. It seems as thought the guys who stay under the Chiefs desk the longest get promoted first! Those are cramped quarters in my department from what I hear.
Fall out for Sonia Sotomayor?
Watch the video below and let me know what you think about the guy stating that Sotomayor ruled against the hispanic firefighters but for the black firefighters. I guess he is comparing the 22 black firefighters not on the list to the 2 hispanic firefighters on the list. In all actuality, there were 16 other hispanic firefighters who did not pass the testing. If I were to report on this I would say that she ruled for the hispanic firefighters as well…all but two of them.
I am certain of one thing, that the IAFF and firefighters across the U.S. will be eyeballing this ruling for use in the future. This case serves as credance that our rights are worth fighting for!
