Recently Black and Hispanic firefighters have cried foul on the FDNY’s allegedly discriminatory hiring policies, now it’s the ladies’ turn. "Don't let a girl do a man's job," read placards during a demonstration after a 1983 court decision to change a screening test, to give females a better shot at fire department jobs. Before 1977 women weren’t even allowed to be firefighters. But despite some changes, today there are just 32 women in the department (you don't see any bikini shots in NY's hunky calendars). "Women are even more underrepresented in the FDNY than minority male firefighters," president of the United Women Firefighters Regina Wilson wrote in a letter to Judge Nicholas Garaufis, who's ruled in favor of minority firefighters in previous lawsuits. more ›

A week after the city was found to be at fault for discriminating against blacks and Latinos who wanted to become firefighters, a Brooklyn federal judge ruled that the city must pay damages to thousands of black and Latino applicants, and give jobs and retroactive pay to 293 others. more ›

Mayor Bloomberg was back in court for the third time in three months, giving a three-hour deposition in the second discrimination case he's had to deal with lately—this one brought by the Justice Department after complaints of unfair hiring practices from the Vulcan Society of black firefighters. The Times reports Bloomberg testified that he "did not recall receiving a report more than six years ago warning him about sharp differences in the passing rates between white and minority candidates for firefighter jobs." The mayor was not expected to testify until he went off about the case, unprompted, during his Congressional testimony in support of Sonia Sotomayor. The case may now head to trial this fall to determine if there was intent in the city's alleged negligence. A lawyer for the Vulcans said, “We’ve presented documents to him showing that the proportion of blacks in the Fire Department...is lower than the proportion that was in the Fire Department in the 1990s. (Bloomberg) dismissed that as minor differences — unimportant — at the same time that he said that he and the city have a great interest in expanding diversity." more ›

After being sued by the U.S. Department of Justice earlier this year over unfair hiring practices, Mayor Bloomberg announced that the number of black and Hispanic candidates has doubled in the past five years. Of the 4,000 applicants who scored highest on this year's entrance exam (22,000 took the exam, 21,000 passed), a third were black or Hispanic, up from 14% in 2002. The FDNY currently has just under 12,000 members; 666 are Hispanic, 337... more ›