Today’s Post-Dispatch reports that a member of the paper’s Community Advisory Board – Jeff Rainford, chief of staff for Mayor Francis G. Slay – thinks the new U.S. Supreme Court ruling regarding white firefighters in New Haven, Conn. justifies how Slay handled promotions in the St. Louis Fire Department.
Slay and his then Director of Public Safety Sam Simon pressured then Fire Chief Sherman George to make a contested set of promotions. The promotional list was based upon a test administered by a testing firm that George had specifically urged the previous Public Safety director not to hire.
George’s authority as fire chief to promote – or not promote – was provided by the City Charter and had been upheld by an appellate court ruling. When George refused to make the promotions based on a list that resulted from what he judged to be an inadequate test, he was demoted. He then resigned and filed suit, claiming that his charter-established authority had been illegally violated and that Slay and the City of St. Louis had discriminated against him on the basis of race.
As George’s lawyer, Tom Blumenthal, has repeatedly pointed out, it was Slay and not George who raised the issue of race in the context of the test and promotions list. George’s objection – as the City’s subject matter expert – was that the test did not adequately test for the necessary fire scene knowledge. It is the Slay administration’s focus on race that forms the basis of George’s racial discrimination suit.
This is Sherman George’s statement:
“The fact: Situation of that case is very different from our case.
First, we are not challenging the racial bias in the case. We are challenging the overall testing competency of the test that were given or administered.
“Second, we are in direct appeal from the Civil Service Commission, which has nothing to do with the test, but has to do with the illegal conduct of the mayor and his Director of Public Safety.
“Third, concerning the New Haven case, we understand that the record in the Connecticut case was perhaps not as developed as it should have been to show what was obvious bias in favor for the white firefighters.”