White & Hispanic Fire-Fighters

Get "Burned" by Affirmative Action

When firefighters battle a raging blaze, they can be sure of at least one thing: the fire will treat them all equally!

Sadly, in getting hired, fired or promoted in modern USA, that is not the case.

New Haven CN firefighters claim they were denied promotions because the city gave preferential treatment to blacks

"The fire isn't going to discriminate against a person whether he's black, white or Hispanic" Connecticut firefighter Ben Vargas, 40, said. "It's going to treat that person the same way."

The fire may not discriminate against white and Hispanics but the Black President does - as below.

In the city of Yale University, New Haven, Vargas, who is Hispanic, and 19 white firefighters say that "fire" is where the equal treatment ends, and discrimination begins. They allege that they were denied promotions because the city gave preferential treatment to blacks.

Matt Marcarelli, who is white, got the top score on a promotion exam in 2003 and was first in line for captain. But when the city reviewed all the test results, it found that the pass rate for black candidates was about half the corresponding rate for white candidates.

None of the black firefighters scored well enough for an immediate promotion. As a result, the city threw out the test results.

"Every day I go to work I've got to pin this lieutenant's badge on me, it reminds me I got screwed out of a captain's badge because of the color of my skin," Marcarelli, 38, said. "That gets to you."

The case has made it all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court, which is scheduled to hear arguments this April 2009. The decision, which is likely to come at the end of June, could affect the hiring and promotion practices for millions of civil servants.

Lawyers for the firefighters say the city violated the Constitution's guarantee of equal protection of the laws as well as the Civil Rights Act of 1964 when it threw out the test scores. The white firefighters "ask nothing more than the basic right to be judged by who they are and what they have accomplished, not by the color of their skin," they say.

Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. has made no secret of his opposition to public universities' considering race in admissions decisions, although the New Haven case will be the Roberts' court first look at the use of race in civil servant hiring and promotion.

The Obama administration, taking its first stand on race and civil rights, sided with the city and said it was "justified in dropping the test . . ."

What else from a man who into Harvard, college professorship, US Senate and President by "affirmative action"?

For decades, people of color across the country have filed scores of discrimination lawsuits to challenge testing in fire departments, police departments and public schools.

New Haven officials and some of the city's black firefighters argue that written tests are not the best tests to use and less discriminatory alternatives -- such as oral exams -- are available for the less intelligent.

Duh . . . isn't that the point of testing?

But whites and Hispanics like Vargas have fought back. Opponents have used civil rights laws to argue reverse discrimination. And they have found some success:

The city of Chicago recently settled a major case with white firefighters for $7.5 million.

Vargas said civil rights laws should be used to protect his potential promotion. "The civil rights laws, they have nothing in there which state preferential treatment. The civil rights laws are there for everybody; all American citizens have the same exact rights."

Obama weighs in again, advising the supreme Court: Citing the "voluminous record in this case," the Obama administration says the Supreme Court should send the case back to a judge in Connecticut to consider whether the white firefighters were victims of racial politics.

Sure Barack, that would be real fair. Lawyers for the white firefighters insist "racial politics" and "cronyism" were behind the city's decision to throw out the test scores to begin with.

Black firefighters say that the stakes in their case couldn't be higher. "If we lose this," New Haven firefighter Octavius Dawson said, "the implication is catastrophic. I mean, where does it end. Not just with the fire department. Police department, education, who knows where it could end?"

But aggrieved white and Hispanic firefighters say they want to take race out of the equation. "We want to be treated just as firefighters, whether we are men, women, white, African American, Hispanic. We want to be treated as firefighters, period."

We are Humans, we are Americans, we are Christians: why does it matter what color we are?