Judge Clears Way for Race Bias Suit Against FDNY to Go to Trial
A suit accusing the New York City Fire Department of firing a black woman who previously served as the department's head of its Equal Employment Opportunity office is proceeding to trial.
January 02, 2018 at 04:23 PM
2 minute read
A suit accusing the New York City Fire Department of firing a black woman who previously served as the department's head of its Equal Employment Opportunity office is proceeding to trial.
A jury could find that firing Lyndelle Phillips, who was appointed to FDNY's EEO office in 2006, was motivated by racial discrimination and not by poor job performance, U.S. District Judge Jack Weinstein of the Eastern District of New York said in a ruling to deny the city's motion for summary judgment to dismiss the case.
“It would be hard for a jury to believe that this intelligent, well-informed person managed her important office in a lackadaisical manor [sic],” Weinstein said of Phillips, citing a Dec. 18 examination of her.
In 2011, Phillips testified in United States and Vulcan Society v. City of New York, the long-running, high-profile class-action suit that centered on the discriminatory impact of the written tests that the FDNY used to screen applicants.
Phillips testified in the case that the department had reduced the number of attorneys working in its EEO office. She was fired from the department in 2012, three days after telling a consultant in the Vulcan litigation that racial discrimination in the FDNY was a larger problem than the case had revealed.
Weinstein set a February trial date for Phillips' Section 1981 claims, though he dismissed Phillips' Section 1983 claims because the three-year statute of limitation had passed.
Gregory G. Smith, a Brooklyn attorney, represents Phillips. “This is a case where there is no smoking gun, i.e. no name calling, no obvious indication of race,” Smith said in an interview. “But this is a circumstantial case. If you look at the circumstances it clearly points out there is racial discrimination.”
Assistant Corporation Counsel Lawrence Profeta appeared for the city. A spokesman for the city's Law Department declined to comment.
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