By Paul Pinkham
The Florida Times-Union
JACKSONVILLE, Fla. — Taking on the daunting task of ending decades of racial strife in Jacksonville’s fire department, a judge moved closer Tuesday to setting a sweeping mediation despite concerns that some involved are more interested in rhetoric than resolution.
The settlement conference will address issues ranging from hiring and promotions to hostile work environment complaints and will be led by Senior U.S. District Judge Harvey Schlesinger, a veteran of such mediation efforts. It will include lawyers for the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, the NAACP, the city, the firefighters’ union, a black firefighters’ group and individual clients.
Also Tuesday, U.S. District Judge Timothy Corrigan denied a request by the Jacksonville Brotherhood of Firefighters, made up of African-American employees of the department, to block a district chief’s exam announced two weeks ago. He decried court filings and public comments by lawyers in that case as counterproductive.
“Professional lawyers don’t let their frustration creep into their pleadings,” Corrigan said during a teleconference with a dozen lawyers. “If the attitude is going to be what I’ve been reading in these papers lately, it may not be worth the effort.”
Each lawyer participating in the teleconference assured Corrigan they want to continue with the mediation.
Corrigan said he tabbed Schlesinger, who has accepted the assignment, because of his experience in mediating disputes and bringing disparate parties together. He cited Schlesinger’s leadership of Duval County school desegregation talks in the mid-1990s.
“I’m offering you one of the most experienced judges in the country,” Corrigan said.
Corrigan has been pushing the settlement conference since reopening a 1971 hiring discrimination case against the Jacksonville Fire and Rescue Department in March. He said after nearly 40 years, litigation may not be the best avenue to resolve the department’s racial issues.
In the 1971 case, the city had agreed in 1982 to hire one African-American firefighter for every white firefighter until the department’s makeup mirrored that of Jacksonville. City officials determined that goal had been met in 1992 and discontinued the practice. Since then, court records show, the number of black firefighters in the department stagnated while the number of white firefighters has increased.
In addition to the 1971 case, there is a promotion discrimination case pending before Corrigan and a handful of verified EEOC charges of discrimination against the department that haven’t been filed in court.
EEOC attorney Daniel Vail told Corrigan his agency is working to settle those cases with the city but is amenable to folding that process into a settlement conference.
There also have been racial incidents over the years, such as in 2006, when nooses were placed on two black firefighters’ gear. That occurred as a trial was about to start before Corrigan involving four white firefighters, who a jury found were denied promotions because of their race.
Copyright 2009 The Florida Times-Union