April 24--The U.S. Department of Justice has launched an investigation into the Austin Fire Department's hiring practices based on information indicating it might discriminate against some minorities, the American-Statesman has learned.
An assistant attorney general for the Justice Department's civil rights division authorized the investigation to determine whether the Fire Department is engaged in a "pattern or practice of discrimination against Hispanics and African Americans with respect to employment opportunities in sworn positions" in violation of federal law, according to a letter from the agency that the city received Monday.
It wasn't immediately clear what prompted the federal investigation.
In a statement, Austin Deputy City Manager Mike McDonald said that he was disappointed by the allegation but that the city welcomes an objective review by the agency responsible for enforcing the country's core employment anti-discrimination laws.
"The city maintains a strong, consistent commitment to equal opportunities in all of its employment practices, including those in the Austin Fire Department," McDonald said.
Fire Chief Rhoda Mae Kerr said in a memo Tuesday that the department looks forward to the opportunity to highlight improvements it has made to its hiring process through the years.
The city intends to cooperate fully with the investigation, both officials said. The Justice Department is expected to discuss the investigation's parameters with Austin officials soon.
It won't be the first time the Fire Department faced a federal inquiry. The city has long struggled with staffing the department in a way that reflects the city's demographics, and discrimination claims have plagued the agency for years.
In 1977, the Justice Department ordered the department to hire more minority cadets, and within three years the number of African-American firefighters rose from eight to about 50.
By early 2002, when the majority of the city's African-American firefighters claimed the department discriminated against minorities, there were 52. Although Austin's population was then almost 10 percent African-American, only 5.7 percent of its firefighters were.
In 2005, as city officials touted a renewed effort to get more minorities in the department, then-Assistant City Manager Rudy Garza said the number of minority and female firefighters was unacceptable, calling the city "probably 60 years behind." That year, minorities made up 47 percent of Austin's population but only 22 percent of the department's sworn personnel.
Today, 5 percent of the Fire Department's sworn personnel -- 46 employees, including 32 firefighters -- is African-American, 15 percent is Hispanic and 79 percent is white.
In all, there are 990 sworn department personnel, including 500 firefighters.
There are also seven Hispanics, 14 whites and no African-Americans in the cadet class that will graduate in May, and 12 Hispanics, 32 whites and one African-American in the cadet class that will graduate in July.
By comparison, about 47 percent of the city was white, 8 percent was African-American and 36 percent was Hispanic in 2011, the year for which the most recent data from the U.S. Census Bureau is available.
Minority hiring plummeted after 1982, the last year of the 1977 court order requiring that African-Americans and Hispanics each make up 20 percent of the cadet class. During the six years of that federal consent decree, the department hired 75 African-Americans. Since the end of the decree in 1982, 50 African-Americans had entered the department by late 2005.
That year, Hispanics represented 15 percent of the department but 31 percent of the city's population.
City officials have tried to rectify that imbalance.
In 2009, for example, Austin City Council members approved hiring a Chicago company that specializes in recruiting public safety employees to help develop a hiring process that would diversify the department. But Austin fire officials have struggled to agree over how to best diversify their ranks, a dispute that in 2010 centered on which of two ways the department should score entrance exams to cull the best and most diverse candidates.
By November 2011, the Fire Department spent close to $1 million in a year to hire 80 firefighters that resulted in similar or fewer minority applicants and hires when compared with previous years, according to records the Statesman analyzed.
The city also settled a lawsuit earlier that year brought by two white former battalion chiefs who alleged the city discriminated against them by promoting two lower-ranking minority firefighters over them.
"I view the launch of an investigation not as a condemnation of our practices but rather an opportunity," Kerr said in Tuesday's memo. "Our goal has been, and remains, to have fair and impartial employment practices for all applicants and employees of the Austin Fire Department."
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