Thomas MacMillan Photo
City Corporation Counsel Victor Bolden said he has completed a detailed analysis of disciplinary actions in the fire department that found no evidence of racial bias. Black firefighters aren’t buying it.
Bolden’s investigation, released Tuesday, stems from a June meeting of the Board of Aldermen’s Public Safety Committee, at which black firefighters complained of rampant workplace discrimination.
Bolden said the mayor asked him to look into the claims. Bolden looked at all disciplinary suspensions between Sept. 22, 2010 — when Pat Egan was promoted to assistant chief — and June 30, 2013. He found no evidence that black, white, and Latino firefighters were disciplined any differently from one another during that time period. Click here to read his report.
Of course that’s what Bolden found, said Darrel Brooks (pictured), political director for the New Haven Firebirds, the black firefighters association. As the city’s top lawyer, Bolden is not an impartial examiner, Brooks argued. He said the Firebirds want an independent analysis of the problem.
Beaver Hills Alderman Brian Wingate, chair of the Public Safety Committee, promised that such an analysis is in the works.
The New Haven fire department has been beset for years by allegations of discrimination and complaints and lawsuits regarding race and promotional testing. That includes the infamous case of Ricci v. DeStefano, a promotions-testing complaint that went all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court.
No “There” There
Bolden presented his report on Tuesday afternoon in his offices in City Hall.
He said he found, first of all, that the department has a very low suspension rate overall. In 2011 and 2012, the department had only 14 suspensions each year. Some 95 percent of firefighters are not being disciplined, he said.
In other words, the department has a “non-discipline rate” of about 95 percent, Bolden said.
Bolden said he then compared the “non-discipline rates” in each year by race. In 2011, seven white, three African American, and four Latino firefighters were suspended. That translates to non-discipline rates of 96 percent for white firefighters, 96 percent for black, and 91 percent for Latino.
The difference between those rates is not significant enough to provide evidence of “disparate impact” because of race, Bolden said. He reached that conclusion using the U.S. Equal Employment Commission’s “80 percent rule,” which states that adverse impact evidence exists if one group’s selection rate is less than 80 percent of the rate of the highest group.
In 2012, the results were similarly close: four white, eight African American, and two Latino firefighters were suspended. Those results also passed the 80 percent rule.
Bolden said he then looked at the specific nature of the suspensions that were given out, to see if there were differences in the number of days suspension given for particular violations.
Between Sept. 22, 2010 and June 30, 2013, 37 firefighters were suspended for 13 different kinds of offenses, Bolden said. “I found no evidence that African American or Latino firefighters are being treated differently because of their race.”
“I didn’t find any ‘there’ there,” Bolden said.
Outside Eyes
“I wouldn’t expect Victor Bolden or the city to come to any other conclusion,” said Brooks. “That’s why we asked for an independent examination.”
“There are seven CHRO [Commission on Human Rights and Opportunities] currently active against the department,” he said. “Never in our history have there been this many complaints.”
“With all due respect to Victor Bolden, it looks like he’s missing something,” Brooks said.
“How can we expect the city to come back and say they found discriminatory practices,” said Gary Tinney (pictured), another Firebird. “We’ve got the fox watching the henhouse. They’re investigating themselves. If they found anything, I’d be very surprised.”
Tinney also mentioned the seven CHRO complaints. “That’s a problem. Something has to be done. Someone has to look into it — someone from the outside.”
“Someone else is going to look into it,” said Alderman Wingate. He said he doesn’t know who that will be, or when it will happen. “There will be another set of eyes on it.”