No to Racial Employment Discrimination

Racial discrimination in the workplace is illegal and wrong. Federal, state and local human rights laws explicitly state that employers cannot discriminate against an applicant or an employee because of his or her race.

Unfortunately, New York City, where I live and work, appears to have had and continues to have a serious and substantial problem regarding racial employment discrimination in its agencies. It’s also possible that other locales throughout this country, including in and within Westchester County, may be facing this same problem. Racial employment discrimination is a problem we need to understand, acknowledge, confront and overcome.

Last month, when New York City and the plaintiffs in a racial discrimination case against the New York City Parks Department announces a $21 million settlement, Mayor Michael Bloomberg was quoted as saying, “It was something that took place a long time ago,” and that he was “satisfied” that “all departments do not discriminate against anybody.” With due respect, Mr. Mayor, that is not correct. Many city agencies continue to engage in what appears to be racial employment discrimination.

Lewis Steel is a veteran civil rights lawyer who was one of the attorneys in the New York City Parks Department case. Lew is a superb lawyer. He says that, “New York City has no effective watchdog entity empowered to root out systemic employment discrimination before it festers into litigation. Moreover, once litigation commences, the approach of the Corporation Counsel is to engage in a scorched-earth defense of the offending department, no matter how devastating the evidence.”

Lew further states that the Parks Department case is a classic example of that approach. “The city ignored a suggestion by federal Judge Denny Chin that it consider negotiating a settlement before the litigation really heated up,” he said. “The city continued to litigate, passing up two additional opportunities to enter into a settlement.”

Lew also points out that the Latino Officers Association case is another example of the city’s scorched-earth approach. “That case, based on a pattern of more severe penalties meted out to Latino and African-American New York City Police officers than to whites for the same offenses, was filed in federal court in 1999 and settle dfor $26 million in 2004 on the eve of the trial,” he said.

Currently, a lawsuit is pending against the city and its fire department, alleging that the fire department’s screening and testing procedures for entry-level jobs are racially discriminatory. Equally alarming is the hierarchy of numerous city agencies. In the spring and summer of 2006, Freedom of Information requests regarding the racial makeup and pay scales of city employees were sent to 27 city agencies – 21 responded, with 16 sending all or most of the information requested. Analyzing the data confirmed my worst fears. The higher you went in the agency hierarchy, the more Caucasian the agency was. Fore example, at the departments of Sanitation, Buildings, Fire, Transportation, Homeless Services, Housing Preservation & Development, City Planning, Design & Construction, Record & Information Services, Human Rights Commission, Consumer Affairs, Youth and Community Development, Cultural Affairs an Citywide Administrative Services, of the 13 employees making $170,000 or more, all 13 were Caucasian.

In the category of employees making between $85,000 and $170,000, for example, at the Department of Homeless Services, 63 percent were Caucasian, even though Caucasians only comprised 17 percent of the staff. Similarly, at the Department of Housing Preservation and Development, 74 percent of the employees making $85,000-$170,000 were Caucasian, even though only 26 percent of the staff was Caucasian.

Similar racial disparities existed at other city agencies.

What is also remarkable about this pattern of racial disparity is that the very city agency charged with the mandate of nondiscrimination is itself guilty of this pattern. At the New York City Human Rights Commission, there were 82 employees during spring 2006 and 27 (33 percent) were Caucasian. Yet, of the 10 highest-paying positions of that agency, nine (90 percent) were Caucasian. Of the 28 employees making less than $50,000, 23 (82 percent) were African-American or Hispanic.

This problem in New York City is real. It needs to be remedied.

Are these New York City problems present in and within Westchester County? If there are similar problems in Westchester, let’s do something to change the situation. If these problems do not exist in Westchester, let me know so we can better understand how Westchester avoided racial discrimination in public employment.

This past April 4 marked the 40th anniversary of the death of Martin Luther King, Jr. Racial employment discrimination was one of the issues Dr. King fought against. Together, let’s confront and overcome any vestiges of racial employment discrimination, nationally and locally.