U.S. Navy Seal Vet Denied FDNY...Due to Age Discrimination...

Shaun Donovan

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There are many who've argued that the FDNY, or the City of New York should've given Navy Seals Special Operations Chief Shaun Donovan an exception around the age rule, which bars civilians over the age of 29 and Military Veterans over the age of 35 from taking the FDNY's Entrance Exam. (https://nypost.com/…/decorated-navy-seal-rejected-by-the-f…/)

I DO NOT.

In 2011, Congressional Medal of Honor winner, Dakota Meyer of the U.S. Marine Corps, declined an extension for his application, if others weren't afforded the same opportunity. (https://abcnews.go.com/…/medal-of-honor-winner-declines-fd…/)

In Shaun Donovan's case, he was born on September 11th, 1981 and was inspired to join the U.S. war against terrorism after the 9/11 attacks. He enlisted after graduating from college in 2005, and has since served four combat tours in Iraq and Afghanistan, earning medals for valor.

He filed for and was allowed to take the October 5th, 2018 written Exam, but it turns out he missed the filing deadline by just under 7 months.

That age restriction should NOT exist.

The FDNY & NYPD age restrictions are antiquated policies that go back to a time when women and males under 5'6" weren't allowed to take the FDNY Exam.

ALL such restrictions violate the intent, if not the letter, of our existing non discrimination laws.

Age is no more a barrier than sexual orientation, or gender. People are individuals and as individuals, some age well and remain fit throughout most of their lives and some become unfit at an early age.

These age limits are arbitrary, capricious and discriminatory. They shouldn't exist, despite the fact that on November 10th, 1986, the 99th Congress gave Police and Fire Departments an exception to the age discrimination bill.

Neither Dakota Meyer, nor Shaun Donovan, nor anyone else over these arbitrary age limits should need an extension - just leave basic cognitive (written) and physical standards in place, provide outreach/recruitment and remedial training for all who'd want it, in order to help applicants meet those standards, male, female, every ethnicity, any age...let the best qualified candidates score the highest and have the city hire by rank order.

If a 45 year old is able to outperform most 25 year old's and is willing to take a position with a mandatory retirement age of 65 (which should also be challenged, as people are living longer, healthier lives), that should be left up to that individual, whether, or not to take that position.

There's no reason to turn down high quality applicants due to age.

Just as basic standards are vital and, in of themselves, discriminate against NO ONE, these exams should be open competitive - open to ALL regardless of age, gender, race, religion, etc.
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If You Think the FDNY is Ethnically Imbalanced, Take a Look at These New York City Agencies…..

TODAY, the ONLY ethnic group that is over-represented in the New York City Municipal workforce by MORE than 10% of their numbers in the city’s population is non-Latino blacks, who are 23% of NYC’s population and 36% of the city’s Municipal workforce! That’s an over-representation on the order of appx. 56% ABOVE their numbers in New York City’s population.

Merit Matters believes that people gravitate to the jobs they have an interest and aptitude for. The fact that until 2007 and over $20 MILLION spent on targeted recruitment non-Latino blacks accounted for LESS than 10% of all FDNY applicants seems to attest to that fact.

BUT IF proportionalism (“NYC’s workforce should mirror/look like NYC’s population”) is going to be the standard, than it MUST BE the standard for ALL…for ALL ethnic groups and for ALL city agencies!

By that measure the Garaufis-CCR-Vulcan Society view INSISTS on reducing the non-Latino black portion of the NYC workforce FROM its current 36% down to appx. 25%! That is what “Making NYC’s workforce look like NYC” would actually mean. While we’d rather see people gravitate to the jobs they have an interest and aptitude for, we also insist that proportionalism can’t just be targeted to one agency, when the city’s entire workforce is so ethnically imbalanced!

Consider that the FDNY’s uniformed firefighting force (excluding EMS and clerical/administrative staff) is 89% white, which is about  2.5X more whites than there are in NYC’s population. Overall (including EMS and clerical/administrative staff) it’s 77% white or about 2.2X as many whites as in NYC’s population.

BUT if you think that demographic is blatantly ethnically imbalanced, wait until you get a look at some of these other New York City agencies!

There are at least 7 city agencies in which a given ethnic group is over-represented by MORE than 2.5X times their numbers in NYC’s population.

The Corrections Department is 65% non-Latino black, 2.9X the number of non-Latino blacks as in the population of NYC, making it even MORE ethnically imbalanced than the FDNY is right now.

Six other New York City agencies are over 60% non-Latino black, meaning OVER 2.5X as many non-Latino blacks as there are in New York City’s population!

These are;

(*) Human Resources Administration (61% non-Latino black)

(*) Equal Employment Practices Commission (63% non-Latino black)

(*) The Department of Probation (64% non-Latino black)

(*) The Department of Homeless Services (64% non-Latino black)

(*) Administration for Children Services (67% non-Latino black)

(*) The Department of Juvenile Justice (78% non-Latino black), which holds 3.4X as many non-Latino black workers as are in New York City’s population, taking the prize as the MOST ethnically imbalanced agency in New York City!

There are at least FOUR other new York City agencies in which non-Latino blacks are 2X or TWICE their numbers in New York City’s population, including the the Dept of Health and Hygiene (45%), Dept of Finance (46%), the Dept of Housing, Preservation and Development (47%) and the Parks Dept (49%).

SEE: http://www.citylimits.org/multimedia/257/new-york-city-s-agencies-by-race-ethnic-breakdown

It would certainly be much more neat and orderly IF every group were proportionally represented within each and every New York City agency, but lowering standards and barring the hiring of some groups until the numbers of others can be brought up, smacks of a kind of “Stalinist authoritarianism” that only the likes of Nicholas Garaufis could embrace.

STILL, that is the charge that the Garaufis-Vulcan Society decision makes clear – within the “zero-sum game” that is municipal Employment, the primary reason for the dirth of Asians and Hispanic workers relative to their numbers in New York City’s population, is the singular and significant OVER-representation of non-Latino blacks within the New York City workforce.

Again, there are ONLY two ethnic groups that are over-represented in the NYC Municipal workforce, non-Latino blacks and non-Latino whites. ONLY non-Latino blacks are over-represented by more than 10% of their numbers within New York City’s population!

Non-Latino whites are 35% of New York City’s population and 38% of its workforce (about 9% ABOVE their numbers in the city’s population), while non-Latino blacks are 23% of city’s the population and 36% (appx. 56% ABOVE their numbers in NYC’s population) of its Municipal workforce!

Both Asians and Hispanics are UNDER-represented in New York City’s Municipal workforce. The sizable over-representation of one ethnic group (non-Latino blacks) is the primary reason for that. Without diminishing the existing number of non-Latino blacks in New York City’s Municipal workforce, there is simply no way to balance out that workforce and allow it to closely mirror New York City’s population.

It certainly appears that there are a lot of New York City agencies that need monitoring, targeted recruitment and demographic scrutiny...BUT only IF “proportionalism” (“NewYork City’s workforce should mirror/look EXACTLY like New York City”) is to be the standard we adopt.

What Ronda Rousey’s Success Has Proven is That Lowering the Bar ISN’T the Answer

Ronda Rousey

Ronda Rousey (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ronda_Rousey) was born afflicted with childhood apraxia of speech, very possibly related to a difficult birth, in which her umbilical cord wrapped around her neck. As this was later considered a possible cause for her perceived learning disability, it prompted her parents to move from Riverside, California to Jamestown, North Dakota, at least in part to be closer to the Minot State University speech therapists, who set about developing programs to combat her childhood speech issues.

Subsequently, Ronda Rousey began practicing Judo with her mother (a former Olympian in that sport) at the age of 11. By age 17, Rousey qualified for the 2004 Olympic Games in Athens, becoming the youngest judoka in the entire Games.

Today she is the first and current UFC Women's Bantamweight Champion, as well as the latest Strikeforce Women's Bantamweight Champion. She is undefeated in mixed martial arts, having won eleven of her twelve fights in the first round and nine using her signature move, the armbar. Rousey was the first U.S. woman to earn an Olympic medal in Judo at the Summer Olympics in Beijing in 2008.

In so doing she, like Serena Williams (perhaps America’s preeminent female athlete of all time) has challenged the conventional thinking about what women can accomplish in the physical realm of sports.

Sadly, today many (mostly government bureaucrats) STILL seem to think that the best way to assist women achieve is to lower the bar/standards so that women can simply bypass the often rigorous physical standards that certain jobs have traditionally maintained. Most of these bureaucrats are, of course, men and for the most part, they seem well-intentioned...Neanderthal in their thinking, but well-intentioned none-the-less.

IF anything, the careers and accomplishments of the likes of Ronda Rousey and Serena Williams prove that lowering the bar is NOT necessary to “include more women.”

Standards are NOT mere “barriers to achievement.” Many jobs (mining, Military combat positions, commercial fishing, policing and firefighting among them) require above average physical strength and stamina.

So WHY the push to lower the bar?

Because it’s EASY...and bureaucrats, like most government workers, prefer the easiest path, the one that requires the least amount of work and takes the shortest period of time to effect.

The real tragedy of lowering the bar (physically and cognitively) is that this path encourages, even endorses ALL the negative stereotypes the intended beneficiaries have had to fight against all their lives.

Instead of arguing, “There are women just as capable as anyone of doing such jobs,” the lowering of the bar argues instead, “Sure, women are less physically capable then males, BUT these higher standards are really unnecessary in today’s world.”

That’s a surrender to stereotype. That’s a tacit endorsement of all the “throws like a girl” stereotypes that have dogged even the most athletic and fit females for eons.

The crux of this battle was recently waged in the FDNY, where Merit Matters (MM), a group dedicated to maintaining the already pitifully LOW written (exams calibrated to 7th & 8th grade reading levels) and physical (pass/fail physicals) entrance exams was assailed by city officials because it advocated a different path to diversifying the FDNY...one that wasn’t as easy, nor short term.

Its leader (President, Paul Mannix) was recently disciplined over the allegedly "leaking" of actual examples of disparate treatment (DELIBERATE DISCRIMINATION in the form of more favorable treatment given to various "priority"/quota hires), when such "leaks" ARE (technically) and SHOULD BE (universally) protected under existing whistleblower statutes.

To be sure, such protections are, all too often, selectively enforced. When a Commissioner's driver's son was given "an exception" around an arrest record fifteen years ago, that information was readily "leaked" WITHOUT repercussions (I was one of the very few who assailed that situation, in a number of letters to the Chief-Leader newspaper), as were various DUI arrests of FDNY members in the wake of 9/11, even though NYC’s public school teachers were racking up even more such violations during that same period. ALL such examples of favoritism and disparate treatment (deliberate discrimination/treating one person differently than others) SHOULD BE exposed and addressed.

There appears to be a very real separate and unequal segregation going on in many such agencies, one in which white, male employees are often considered 2^nd or 3^rd class members.

The irony in all this is that higher standards may actually be the BEST way to assist women and minorities. Sure, this would require NEW and in many ways more arduous standards that focus on endurance, along with upper body strength and might even require active remedial cognitive (test-taking) classes for those applicants saddled with the effects of our under-performing public schools (and NOT simply replacing objective knowledge-based questions with subjective, opinion-based ones), BUT, so long as those standards and the pre-test prep is open to all, there could be no righteous claims of actual discrimination, regardless of the result.

The tragedy here is that the so-called “friends” of the “under-represented” (women and African-Americans) have chosen to simply continuing to lower the bar and combat the symptoms of these disparities, rather than deal with the underlying issues - the actual disease (of low expectations).

All of this brings to mind an old Jewish saying that goes, “God protect me from my friends; I’ll deal with my enemies myself.”

John Goss

Today (March 15th, 2015) marks my FDNY appointment day, 29 years ago.

It’s also, I believe, the day on which John Goss, a firefighter and man I was extremely fortunate to know, died. He died on my appointment day, on the same year my Dad did (1997).

John Goss spent his entire career on the Backstep of 35 Engine in East Harlem. He never drove. When I arrived there in early May of 1986, John Goss had already been through “the War Years,” having gotten on the FDNY in 1962.

He’d been through New York City’s “firestorm” of the late 1960s and 1970s. He was already a legend in that firehouse, but John came through all that without any bluster or bravado. For him humility was more than a mere virtue, it was his personal credo. I greatly admired that in him. My own father and many of his WW II cohorts had that very same character trait and like John Goss, they never took themselves seriously.

Almost all of John’s “fire stories” were self-effacing,” like one about how he had his helmet blown off by an advancing hose line and how he had to chase after his helmet after the flames were extinguished. Often, John was the butt of his own jokes, a rare trait these days. John liked nothing more than to make others laugh...to “take the pressure off.”

I only got to spend ONE year with John Goss, but it was a vital one, my very first in the FDNY, and John (in group 2) was my mentor (I was assigned to group 3), so John Goss pretty much showed me the ropes, or “broke me in,” in the FDNY parlance. I have always said that if I could be half the man John Goss was, half as humble, half as able to make others laugh under tense situations, half as willing to direct my own humor at myself, I'd be OK. Believe me, that's a pretty high bar...and I'm STILL trying (and failing) to reach it.

John has lived on inside my heart ever since 1986.

Back in 1990, when my father was retiring as Asst. Borough Commander of Manhattan, I commissioned a John Goss painting to commemorate that occasion (an image of the picture is displayed above). It captures my father’s FDNY career, starting out in Engine-201, as a Lt in Ladder-6, a Captain in Ladder-107 (their bucket is at the window), a Battalion Chief in the 44th Battalion, a brief stint in the Safety Battalion, then to the 4th Division, then to the 5th and on to the Staff. John’s painting captures it all. He said my Dad always reminded him of Jimmy Cagney...funny stuff. The 5th Division Chief off to the left is John's image of my Dad and he (John Goss) is the 4th Division Chief with his hand on his shoulder just off to the right.

John has a number of paintings hanging in various firehouses around the city and in the FDNY's Fire Museum, but one of my favorites remains a back cover he did for the WNYF that (I believe) came out in late 1986, with an older fireman with his arm around the shoulder of a Probie (1st year firefighter), with the caption, “Nice job kid.” He said he painted that with himself as the older firefighter and myself as the probie in his mind.

To this day, I don’t think I ever told him what an honor that was. When he told me that...I believe I said nothing. I was pretty much speechless. I don't think I've seen that cover in over 25 years, now.

Despite his self-effacing humor and deep humility, John Goss was a tough, “old school” firefighter. An image that is seared upon my mind is that of John Goss’s ubiquitous cigarette’s burning red tip providing the only light in the back of a rig after a job (fire). That, and John’s familiar refrain, “So long old paint.”

I've met a LOT of great people on the FDNY...far too many to mention and I know I'd leave out a ton even if I put down 1,000 names, but John Goss was my "FDNY template," a thoroughly good, easy-going, humble man who always got the job done, without any fanfare, nor even the slightest bit of self-aggrandizement. I've met quite a number of men who've lived up to that template, but in my own mind, John Goss was the original.

A day doesn't go by that I don’t think of my late Dad and whenever I think of him, the image of John Goss ALWAYS pops up, as well. I miss them both and the better days their images bring to mind.

Defining Tolerance....

A Rogue's gallery of Ideological Bigots;



Craig Stephen Hicks (Anti-Theist killer)



Rosemary Lehmberg Rogue TX D.A.



John Chislom Rogue WIisconsin D.A.

"Tolerance," like "peace," and "love" are things that everyone can seem to agree upon....UNTIL it gets down to actually defining them, because, like "truth" and "beauty" these terms all mean different things to different people.

For instance, what's the difference between this tee shirt;

And this one?

The most basic and direct answer is....there IS absolutely NO difference between the two shirts.

And YET, people claim to find offense with one and NOT the other...with the offense differing based solely on the observer's personal perspective. The truth is, IF you find offense in ONE, you SHOULD (if fair minded) find offense in BOTH, as both are statements that endorse racialism, or "race consciousness." BOTH shirts advocate for a single, specific race, BOTH promote a solidarity based solely on race, which is antithetical to the mores and values  of a multi-cultural society. I am admittedly vaguely uncomfortable with both shirts, but find neither one of them overtly “offensive.”

Recently, an FDNY attorney argued that a shirt with a Maltese Cross (a traditional Fire Department symbol) on the front, with the words Merit and Matters on the top and bottom bars of the cross, respectively and a phrase from the FDNY's own EEO policy that reads, "The Fire department is firmly committed to maintaining fair employment practices for its employees and applicants and ensuring that employment decisions are made without regard to color...gender...race...religion..." on the back, was somehow "bigoted" and "offensive."

How does the simple phrase "Merit Matters" become offensive in a job that is and long has been filled via the dictates of the Civil Service MERIT System? Especially when the City of New York clearly states in its own 2013 Workforce Profile Report; “Many job categories for NYC employees are governed by New York State civil service law. The civil service system is designed to ensure that public sector jobs in New York State and its municipalities are filled based on MERIT as determined by examination, education, and experience. Most City jobs are filled from ranked competitive lists based on examination scores.” (http://www.nyc.gov/html/dcas/downloads/pdf/misc/workforce_profile_report_12_30_2013.pdf)

So, how does a phrase taken directly from that organization's EEO policy become "offensive"?

Partly because some people (even some in government) take offense to the idea that the underlying sentiment of that shirt is the absolute rejection of the idea of "special considerations" or "preferences" based on race and/or gender," AND that it implies that the FDNY's own EEO policy does NOT recognize, nor endorse the existence of "protected groups," nor the view that "some preferences are warranted."

That's NOT the fault of an organization named Merit Matters. It's the FDNY's fault and more specifically the fault of its own EEO Unit that it hasn't changed, or updated its policy statement.

IF the FDNY's EEO statement read something like, "The FDNY is firmly committed to fair employment practices and therefore adheres to existing affirmative action guidelines that may bestow hiring preferences based on color, gender, religion and race, at varying times..." that entire controversy would've been avoided, as Merit Matters could NOT have highlighted what, in the first instance, appears to be an innate hypocrisy between the stated objectives of the FDNY's EEO Unit and the FDNY's actions.

Now, that change in wording would NOT bar, nor deter such groups from legally challenging such preferences and looking to bar the use of poorly defined principles like "disparate impact," etc.

Many firefighters and interested civilians see the matter as a "health and safety issue," for BOTH active duty firefighters AND the public.

Again, this highlights the dangerous nature of ideological bigotry. Craig S. Hicks was an avowed "anti-theist," which is fine. What ISN'T "fine," is Hicks' irrational view that he could justifiably impose his view on others, as when he murdered 3 Muslim neighbors, allegedly over a parking space. Hicks apparently believed that his view was “the right one,” and thus superior to those who disagreed with him. That twisted perspective allowed him to rationalize shutting up those who disagreed with him...allegedly in this most recent incident, permanently.

The fact that both John Chisolm (a Milwaukee, WI D.A.) and Travis County, Texas, D.A., Rosemary Lehmberg have brought charges against sitting Governors (Scott Walker and Rick Perry respectively) primarily and ostensibly over ideological differences (Chisolm's allegedly at the behest of his Union shop steward wife and Lehmberg over a personal vendetta with Governor Perry) and this also highlights the very real abuses when such petty bigotries are allowed to be used by those entrusted to enforce the LAW.

In my view, BOTH Lehmberg and Chisolm SHOULD BE disbarred for allowing their personal ideological bigotries to color their legal judgments.

The law is NOT allowed to "take sides." There is NO "right ideology" nor "wrong ideology" in the eyes of the law. The communist has as much right to espouse his views as the nazi does to espouse hers. The liberal has as much right to espouse her views, as the conservative does to espouse his. Free speech is for ALL, or it exists for NONE. In fact, the ONLY speech that requires protections is controversial, offensive and unpopular speech.

Attempting to criminalize a specific ideology is itself a criminal act.