Copyright 2006 St. Louis Post-Dispatch, Inc.
By PETER SHINKLE
St. Louis Post-Dispatch (Missouri)
ST. LOUIS — A federal jury awarded two white firefighters nearly $163,000 on Thursday for back pay and damages stemming from the St. Louis Fire Department’s delay in giving them jobs because of a race-based hiring rule.
Michael Martinez and Eric Deeken claimed in a reverse discrimination suit that the court-ordered hiring system violated their rights. The 1976 order required the department to hire one black firefighter for every white for an entry-level position.
U.S. District Judge John Nangle dissolved the court order in 2003 after finding it had achieved its goal of making the department’s labor force match the racial composition of the labor force in St. Louis.
The Fire Department acknowledged that the two white firefighters ought to have been hired in March 2000; they were, in fact, hired in 2005.
The jury in federal court in St. Louis awarded Deeken $156,989 for lost wages and benefits and $1,000 for other damages. It awarded Martinez, who had a full-time job with the city prior to joining the Fire Department, $5,000 for emotional distress and humiliation.