Firefighters Sue Montclair Over Discrimination Accusations: Report

MONTCLAIR, NJ — Two Black firefighters in Montclair are suing the township, several officials and a test prep vendor over accusations that promotions at the Montclair Fire Department favor white firefighters, a report says.

The suit – filed Monday – seeks a jury trial and asks for unspecified compensatory and punitive damages, interest and legal fees, according to Montclair Local/Baristanet. Read the full article here.

The lawsuit contains four allegations about the MFD promotion process, the report says:

• “The Montclair defendants replaced the existing promotional process with one that diminished the value of seniority – a factor that favored Black firefighters.”
• “The Montclair defendants added a highly subjective job performance evaluation section to the promotion process, which permitted them, having exclusive control over the scoring of that section, to favor white firefighters over their Black counterparts.”
• “The Montclair defendants scored the disciplinary section of the examination in violation of their own rubric to disfavor plaintiffs, who were penalized for minor infractions while white firefighters who had engaged in far more serious and more recent misconduct were not penalized.”
• “The Montclair defendants conspired with defendant Promotional Prep … to provide test preparation services only to white firefighters preparing for promotional examinations, while also increasing the impact of the written test by raising the threshold required to move forward to subsequent sections of the exams.”

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