People Who Pick Political Puppet Judges Shouldn't Complain

Bloomberg slams Garaufis over FDNY discrimination ruling
The New York Post by Mitchel Maddux  -  January 20, 2012

Mayor Bloomberg has launched a stinging broadside against a federal judge who last year mandated broader judicial oversight over New York City's fire department after that ruling minority firefighters were subjected to widespread discrimination.  City attorneys have suggested that Brooklyn federal Judge Nicholas Garaufis "abandoned a neutral role" while presiding over the civil rights case brought against the FDNY by the US Justice Department and "injected" personal, "extrajudicial beliefs" into the bitterly fought court battle.  "The whole episode speaks volumes about the Court’s lack of detachment," attorneys wrote in a brief filed with the Second Circuit Court of Appeals.  It is not the first time that New York City's mayor has cross rhetorical swords with the powerful federal judge who recently ordered that a court-appointed monitor should supervise a wide range of functions at the fire department involving the hiring and promotion of minority firefighters.  In his written decision issued last fall, Garaufis singled out Bloomberg personally for his failure to attack the issue of bias in the FDNY's ranks head-on.  Last year, the judge wrote in another opinion that the fire department and city officials had tried to downplay problem, saying "the city’s culture of bureaucratic blame-shifting and accountability avoidance [shows]...that the city does not want to be held accountable for the results of its recruitment efforts. This is unacceptable."  The city's appeal in the FDNY discrimination case has been long awaited and was promised within minutes of the judge's ruling that minorities trying to become city firefighters suffer disadvantages that go far beyond the applicant testing process.  The ruling placing a court-appointed monitor over the fire department followed a special bench trial held last summer, which focused on how the FDNY can attract more minority applicants to an agency overwhelmingly staffed by white firefighters.  The judge concluded after the trial that the low percentage of minorities in the FDNY is "a direct result and vestige of the city’s pattern and practice of discrimination against black firefighter candidates."  Garaufis' ruling stems from a 2007 lawsuit filed against the fire department by the US Justice Department, with the aim of forcing the city to hire more minorities at an agency where white men make up 93 percent of the 11,000 firefighters in its ranks - in a city with a far more diverse population.  The judge had ruled previously that the FDNY's entrance test unfairly discriminates against black and Hispanic applicants.  Mary Jo White, the former Manhattan US attorney appointed by the court as a special master to create a new FDNY entrance exam, has been engaged in efforts to create a new test that is more fair to minority firefighters.  Firefighter applicants are scheduled to take the new test in the spring.