WHITE FIREFIGHTERS ARE EXCLUDED FROM FDNY COLOR GUARD

FDNY official defends excluding famed 9/11 firefighter from color guard for being white

 

By Susan Edelman 

 

New York Post

July 25, 2020

 

A top FDNY official says it’s “most definitely” acceptable to exclude a white firefighter from a ceremonial unit based solely on his skin color, The Post has learned.

Cecilia Loving, the department’s chief diversity and inclusion officer, is defending a decision to kick Lt. Daniel McWilliams — one of three firefighters in the iconic 9/11 Ground Zero flag-raising photo — off a color-guard procession so it would be all-black.

Loving testified at a state Divsion of Human Rights trial on McWilliam’s complaint that he was the victim of racial bias.

When McWilliams showed up at a 2017 memorial mass to honor deceased members of the Vulcan Society, a fraternal group of black FDNY firefighters, he was barred from holding a flag in the color guard.

Regina Wilson, then Vulcan Society president, asked McWilliams to “help in a different capacity” because he is not black.

Loving, who is black, testified there is nothing wrong with that.

“So, a request for an all-black color guard is not discriminatory?” McWilliam’s lawyer, Keith Sullivan, asked in the trial.

“No, it isn’t,” Loving replied.

Asked if it’s acceptable to request an all-black color guard, she said, “Most definitely.”

Loving said it’s okay to replace a white member with an African-American to “uplift our identities and our separate ethnicities in order to instill a sense of pride and community and support for one another.”

In a written brief, Sullivan called the rejection of McWilliams “deplorable,” and evidence of a stark double standard in the FDNY.

“If you’re black and you discriminate against a white person in the workplace, you get a slap on the wrist at best,” he wrote. A white person who discriminates gets “heavy-handed discipline and punishment.”

Wilson received “one hour of counseling” as discipline for her treatment of McWilliams.

“The FDNY has created a policy and procedure for bending over backwards, coming up with excuses and accommodating members of the Vulcan Society … who commit racist acts, and it has to stop,” Sullivan wrote.

McWilliams declined to comment, but he was upset and “embarrassed” by the incident, Sullivan said.

After filing his complaint, McWilliams was the target of retaliation and intimidation by Wilson’s supporters, Sullivan argues. One put his hands on McWilliams,  and said, ”I’ve heard about you, they told me you’d act this way, and now you know me.”

The FDNY declined to comment because a final decision is pending.