Copyright 2006 The Austin American-Statesman
All Rights Reserved
By CLAIRE OSBORN
Austin American-Statesman (Texas)
Barbara JoNell Booker was looking for a secure job with good pay after being laid off from her finance job at Dell in 2002.
Then, she said, an Austin Fire Department recruiter who worked out at her gym suggested that she try out to become a firefighter because more minorities and women were needed.
She was accepted to the fire department training academy in 2004 and graduated. But two months later, she was fired.
Now, Booker, 36, has sued the city, saying that she was discriminated against because she is African American and female.
The Fire Department said it could not comment on the lawsuit, filed May 17, because it is pending litigation.
The department has struggled to recruit and retain women and minorities. It currently has 37 female firefighters and 940 male firefighters. About 6 percent of the department is African American; all 54 African-American firefighters are men.
The department has responded by starting a fire academy at LBJ High School this year, Assistant Fire Chief Flo Soliz said.
It is part of a plan to introduce firefighting to students who may have never considered it as a career, Soliz said.
Lt. Richard Davis, vice president of the Austin African-American Firefighter’s Association, said that the academy is a good start but that efforts to recruit minorities into the department have been slow.
Booker said she first noticed that she was being treated differently when she was a cadet.
During the training, fire department staff members recommended twice that she be fired for failing tests that others had also failed but had not been singled out for, she said.
The first test was a biweekly written exam. The second was a “throw-bag” skill test that involves holding one end of a rope while throwing the rest of the rope, which is in a bag, a certain distance to help a simulated victim.
The Fire Department Cadet Oversight Committee Review Board reviewed the recommendations that she be fired and sent them to the fire chief, the lawsuit said.
Booker was retained, partly because the board found out that 60 percent of the current firefighters could not pass the throw-bag test, the lawsuit said.
When she entered the usual six-month probationary period after graduating from the academy, Booker said, she noticed other differences in the way she was treated.
Instead of being allowed to stay at the same station and develop camaraderie as other cadets were, she was constantly shifted to different stations, she said.
Her supervisor made comments about her “needing psychological assistance (and) not being capable of being a firefighter,” the lawsuit said.
Booker acknowledged that she had problems performing certain skills during training. She said she wasn’t able to hold a hose in the same position for five minutes while it sprayed 250 gallons per minute. She also said she forgot to turn on her oxygen supply during one training exercise.
“I didn’t ask for special treatment,” she said. “I knew I would need extra training.”
Firefighters on probation are supposed to be graded on skills such as carrying two hoses up a flight of stairs at the end of the six-month probationary period, Booker said.
But she said her supervisor graded her during the first two months of probation and even videotaped her, which she said did not happen to other cadets.
Darren Hyson, a member of the Austin African-American Firefighter’s Association, said in an affidavit filed with the lawsuit that two other firefighters on probation with Booker also had trouble learning certain tasks but that their difficulties were not taped or documented like Booker’s were.
Senior management officials told Booker in a Jan. 6, 2005, meeting that they thought she should not be allowed to become a firefighter because her performance was not “up to par,” she said. Booker was fired the next day, she said.
The Austin Firefighters Association has not taken a position on the case, President Mike Martinez said.
“I can certainly sympathize with the struggles she went through,” he said. “This case is several years in the making, and there’s a lot of facts that have not been revealed that will be revealed during the trial.”