According to recent reports, Brooklyn Federal Court Judge Nicholas Garaufis claimed the incident in which New York Attorney General Letitia James was booed by members of the New York City Fire Department is evidence of racist culture within the fire department.
Garaufis has ordered FDNY Commissioner Laura Kavanagh and the city’s Corporation Counsel, Sylvia Hinds-Radix, to attend a status conference to address the settlement in the Vulcan Society of Black Firefighters’ case against the FDNY in May.
Vulcan Society president Regina Wilson voiced her complaints about the incident earlier this month where booing was directed at James and others engaged in energetic “Trump” chants. Wilson spoke about the conduct at the last status conference on March 14.
“I don’t know if you had an opportunity to just see the vile nature of these members even when we were at Christian Cultural Center where they started booing and saying ‘Trump, Trump Trump,’ while Letitia James was at the podium,” Wilson said. “This behavior is who this department is. Not all of them, but a large portion of them. So when Black people go to work and have to deal with this and you don’t get any help or support really from the department, it’s horrific.”
Garaufis demanded an investigation where hearings should be held in relation to the incident, emphasizing that it is not simply a “request” but rather “direction.” He further claimed that the conduct of the firefighters had everything to do with “race” instead of politics.
“Get the EEO [Equal Employment Opportunity] office straightened out. Take some of your brilliant lawyers from the Corporation Counsel and put them in there and start holding hearings. That’s not a request, that’s a direction,” Garaufis said. “I’ve lived in New York City all my life. I know what the problem is. And believe me, front and center is what happened the other day. This doesn’t have to do with politics, this has to do with race.”
The judge continued calling for the hundreds of lawyers apparently at their disposal who could be mobilized to take action. “You have 900 lawyers sitting doing other things in the Corporation Counsel’s office and lawyers all over the city government. Put them on detail, they already work for you, and do it. One hundred eighty days is not acceptable,” Garaufis said. “And I want the commissioner here at the next meeting.”
According to a statement from FDNY spokesman James Long, the New York City Fire Department is actively working to “re-staff” the EEO to eliminate “discrimination” and “harassment.” “Commissioner Kavanagh and the FDNY is committed to providing a professional work environment free of discrimination and harassment for all Department employees, which is why we continue to work with our city partners so we can effectively re-staff the EEO office,” said Long.
Law Department spokesman Nicholas Paolucci also spoke about the how seriously the fire department handles complaints from the EEO. “The FDNY takes every EEO complaint seriously, diligently investigates each complaint, and is committed to addressing the complaint backlog,” he said. “The court has previously expressed appreciation for the Corporation Counsel’s active engagement in finding solutions in the past, and continued to acknowledge that a lot of the city’s efforts have been done well. We’ll be updating the court on how we plan to further assist the FDNY EEO Office.”
Featured image credit: By Thomas Good – Thomas Good / Next Left Notes, CC BY-SA 4.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=5246174
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