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A Denver Fire Department captain told a Black recruit in 2018 she was going to have a hard time getting through the academy because of the culture there, according to lawsuit filed in federal court Wednesday, but did offer a piece of advice — “she should keep her head down and act like a slave.”
That recruit, Charmaine Cassie, did make it through the academy and has been a firefighter ever since.
She and Da Lesha Allen, a former firefighter who was forced out of the department in late 2019, are the ones responsible for the new lawsuit against the city and county of Denver. Filed in the U.S. District Court for the District of Colorado, it claims the fire department violated their constitutional rights to equal protection, among other things, by subjecting them to repeated instances of racial discrimination and sex discrimination, and retaliation for complaining about it.
Allen, who was hired and fired in 2019, and Cassie describe numerous instances of being treated more harshly and judged by different standards than their white and male counterparts. Both also say they were also subjected to racial stereotyping and inappropriate comments of a racial and sexual nature.
In one example cited in the lawsuit, Cassie said she was helping a lieutenant carry a weight rack in 2019 when she briefly rested the equipment on her backside.
“That thing’s gotta be good for something” the lieutenant reportedly said to her. It was not the first time that lieutenant made comments to Cassie about her having a “big butt” the lawsuit said, and the “sexist and racist connotations of the remark were extremely painful.”
Another time, an assistant captain allegedly commented to Cassie, after seeing “her hair straightened rather than braided in the way many African-American women style their hair,” that now Cassie “look(ed) like a human” without “hav(ing) those things in (her) hair.”
Allen, too, claims she was faced with similar racial discrimination and comments about Black women and “them things in your hair,” even though she didn’t have braids.
She also says she got a taste of the culture of racial and sexual discrimination right from the start, during a conversation with the Denver civil service detective assigned to conduct her background check before entering the fire academy.
“[He] told her that DFD was concerned about someone of her background joining the Academy because of the ‘myth’ that she was not ‘moldable.’ She asked him if he meant her having a ‘black attitude,’ and he responded, ‘you know what they say,’” the lawsuit says.
Allen took him to be referring to the stereotype of the “angry black woman.”
“He never denied that he was referencing this myth,” the lawsuit says. “And in response to her inquires, merely just kept repeating, ‘well, you know.’”
In addition to the comments, Allen and Cassie say they were held to stricter, higher standards than their male and white counterparts throughout the fire academy, which set back their progress and made it more difficult, if not impossible, to excel.
Conducting drills side-by-side with white women and men of all races, Allen and Cassie said their performance was scrutinized and “written up” while the others doing as well or worse at the tasks at hand were encouraged and supported.
When it came to dealing with injuries, both plaintiffs say they were treated differently.
In Cassie’s case, she claims she was forced to go through the academy twice because of time lost due to an injury while male recruits who missed as much, if not more, time than she did were allowed to complete the academy the first time.
According to the lawsuit, the day she was told she would have to go through the academy a second time, the assistant fire captain told Cassie, “You know it’s not that people mean to, but when you have one thing that’s not like the other, it’s just certainly going to be singled out. You know, looked at differently. Plus, you’re female so you will get singled out.”
Cassie claims the fire chief then joined in the conversation, telling her, “I don’t think we mean anything by it but it happens. People are always going to single others out, especially when they are different.”
Allen filed a discrimination complaint over her treatment and after the city conducted an internal affairs investigation, it decided her complaints were unfounded, the Denver Post reported. She was put on administrative leave a short time later and then fired.
Cassie also filed a complaint, but the results of any investigation are unknown, the lawsuit says.
“Apparently, Denver does not have a problem with blatantly racist, sexist, racially-stereotyping comments such as those made” to Allen and Cassie, their lawsuit says. “Denver’s ratification of and explicit support for these comments demonstrates the large extent to which racism and sexism is tolerated and fostered by DFD.”
According to the Denver Post’s reporting, the majority of the Denver Fire Department’s employees are white men. Statistics for the years 2016 to 2019 show that only 5% of the fire department staff is Black, 5% are women and Black women make up less than 1%, the Post said.
“Since its inception, the Denver Fire Department has engaged in the widespread practice of discriminating against African-American and female firefighters,” the local NBC affiliate 9News quoted the lawsuit as saying. “This practice is not a relic of the past, but rather remains rooted in the fabric of the department.”
Have you ever been the victim of racial discrimination at work? Have been you discriminated against on the basis of sex? Tell us about it in the comment section below.
Plaintiffs Allen and Cassie are represented by David A. Lane and Liana Orshan of Killmer, Lane & Newman LLP.
The Denver Fire Department Racial Discrimination Lawsuit is Da Lesha Allen, et al. v. City and County of Denver, Case No. 1:20-cv-02952-MEH, in the U.S. District Court for the District of Colorado.
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One thought on Firefighters File Racial Discrimination Lawsuit Against Denver
Kudos I was the first and only female firefighter in the history of The Camp Pendleton Fire Department s then 70 year history.
I got others hired was the first person to Run a Marathon in Turnouts and SCBA My times have never been beaten and the people who copied me Men One and one half hours slower women 1-2 hours slower had the audacity to put themselves on a Guinness list.
But I digress 4:30 San Diego Marathon 4:40 LA Marathon.
I went through some of that as well but because of my work I was accepted.
The only way that I could be stopped was not to document my training so my training shows FF 1 although I served up to Captain and have the proof.
The DOD hasn’t corrected anything and Congress did not help. if any lawyers working in California would like to help me recover the money from a State ordered Settlement upon the Federal Government in California regarding this please contact me.