Filed Date: Dec. 8, 2005
Clearinghouse coding complete
Notes from the NAACP website:
On February 27, 2006, the National NAACP and the Reading Branch NAACP joined an employment lawsuit, originally filed on December 8, 2005, against the City of Reading, Pennsylvania. The suit charged the Reading Fire Department with implementing discriminatory recruitment and hiring practices against African Americans and other minorities. Although the City of Reading was 11% Black and 37% Latinx, the Fire Department was virtually all-white. Of the Fire Department's 147 full-time, uniformed employees, there were no Black employees and fewer than five Latinx employees.
The complaint alleged that the City's discriminatory employment practices include: refusing to recruit and hire Black people and other minorities for firefighter positions on the same basis as whites; basing such recruitment on a primarily "word of mouth" system that results in the employment of friends and relatives of current City firefighters, the vast majority of whom are white; failing or refusing to adopt nondiscriminatory recruitment, application, testing, and selection techniques for the position of firefighter; and failing or refusing to take appropriate action to correct the effects of its past discriminatory policies and practices.
Plaintiffs in the case sought relief in the form of: a permanent injunction barring the City from discriminating against Black and other minority firefighter candidates on the basis of race and/or national origin; a permanent injunction directing the City to adopt and implement a vigorous recruitment program designed to attract qualified Black and other minority applicants for employment in numbers which at least reflect the proportion of minority applicants and candidates in and around the City; lost income and benefits; reasonable attorneys' fees and expert fees.
After some settlement conferences and status reports, on March 27, 2007, the parties entered into a settlement which was approved by the court as a consent decree. Under the terms of the consent decree, the defendants agreed to encourage minority applicants into the firefighter program. The docket has no entries after the consent decree, and we have no further information in this case.
Summary Authors
Kristen Sagar (4/9/2009)
Asaka, Anson (Maryland)
Feinberg, Jonathan H. (Pennsylvania)
Hayes, Dennis Courtland (Maryland)
Marcus, Terri N. (District of Columbia)
Ludwig, Steven K. (Pennsylvania)
Sánchez, Juan Ramon (Pennsylvania)
Last updated July 11, 2023, 10:22 p.m.
State / Territory: Pennsylvania
Case Type(s):
Special Collection(s):
Key Dates
Filing Date: Dec. 8, 2005
Case Ongoing: No reason to think so
Plaintiffs
Plaintiff Description:
A black applicant for a position at the City of Reading Fire Department filing on behalf of himself and similarly situated individuals, joined by the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People
Plaintiff Type(s):
Attorney Organizations:
Kairys, Rudovsky, Messing & Feinberg, LLP
Public Interest Lawyer: Yes
Filed Pro Se: No
Class Action Sought: Yes
Class Action Outcome: Granted
Defendants
City of Reading (Reading), City
Defendant Type(s):
Case Details
Causes of Action:
Title VI, Civil Rights Act of 1964, 42 U.S.C. § 2000d et seq.
Available Documents:
Injunctive (or Injunctive-like) Relief
Outcome
Prevailing Party: Plaintiff
Nature of Relief:
Injunction / Injunctive-like Settlement
Source of Relief:
Form of Settlement:
Court Approved Settlement or Consent Decree
Order Duration: 2007 - None
Content of Injunction:
Develop anti-discrimination policy
Comply with advertising/recruiting requirements
Other requirements regarding hiring, promotion, retention
Issues
General:
Discrimination-area:
Discrimination-basis:
Race: