Secret Service Will Pay $24M to Settle Racial Discrimination Class Action

Top Class Actions’s website and social media posts use affiliate links. If you make a purchase using such links, we may receive a commission, but it will not result in any additional charges to you. Please review our Affiliate Link Disclosure for more information.

The federal government has agreed to pay $24 million to settle a long-running racial discrimination case accusing the Secret Service of discriminating against African-American agents

The settlement, announced Thursday, brings a close to a contentious nearly 17-year legal battle brought by black agents who deemed their work environment blatantly discriminatory, with white agents getting routinely promoted over more qualified African-Americans.

“Efforts to craft mutually agreeable injunctive relief regarding the Secret Service’s promotions process were especially time consuming,” the plaintiffs wrote. “After nearly six months, the parties reached the settlement presented to the court herein.”

Eight of the 10 original plaintiffs in the case could receive as much as $300,000 under terms of the settlement.

As part of the deal, which still needs approval by the court, the Secret Service admits no wrongdoing. The settlement agreement stipulates that “the Secret Service has independently and proactively undertaken and implemented numerous modifications to its policies and practices concerning promotions” since the discrimination lawsuit was filed nearly two-decades ago and two presidents ago.

Beyond the monetary settlement, the Secret Service will launch a hotline for agents to report bias, and will also change its hiring procedures and keep detailed records on promotion factors. The agency also agreed to submit to the judgment of an outside expert in maintaining a “competency-based” process for promoting agents.

Initially filed in 2000, on behalf of a handful of Secret Service agents who said they were routinely and unfairly passed over for promotions while less-qualified white agents rose up the ladder, the class action accused the agency of promoting a culture of racism. The discrimination lawsuit was certified as a class action in 2013.

According to court documents, lead plaintiff and Special Agent Reginald Moore applied for promotion 180 times without success, even though he was thought of highly enough to have been assigned to President Bill Clinton’s protective detail.

“At one point [Moore] was assigned to train a white selectee for a position on which he had formerly bid,” according to the discrimination lawsuit.

Other plaintiffs said they were passed over for promotions for which they were qualified as many as 160 times. The plaintiffs also charged that they often overheard their superiors using racial slurs to describe black people, including foreign leaders – who they were ordered to protect, and were threatened with retaliation if they spoke out against the racist banter.

“I am pleased that we are able to finally put this chapter of Secret Service history behind us,’’ Homeland Security Secretary Jeh Johnson said regarding the settlement. “Had the matter gone to trial, it would have required that we re-live things long past, just at a time when the Secret Service is on the mend.’’

The plaintiffs are represented by John Relman, Jennifer Klar and Megan Cacace of Relman Dane & Colfax PLLC, and E. Desmond Hogan and Erica Knievel Songer of Hogan Lovells.

The Secret Service Agent Racial Discrimination Class Action Lawsuit is Reginald Moore, et al. v. Johnson, Case No. 1:00-cv-00953, in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia.