The federal government is suing the city of Gary over accusations the city discriminated against white applicants for paramedic jobs.
In a lawsuit filed Monday in Hammond federal court by the U.S. Department of Justice, federal civil rights lawyers accuse Gary officials of violating the Civil Rights Act of 1964 by hiring six black applicants for emergency medical technician jobs in October 2006. Several white applicants were ranked higher than some of those black applicants on a city list that was supposed to determine who would be hired, according to the lawsuit.
Gary City Attorney Hamilton Carmouche said the black applicants were hired because they lived in Gary, not because of their race. The white applicants did not live in Gary, Carmouche said. The city never would consider race in hiring, Carmouche said.
The city will fight the lawsuit "vigorously," Carmouche said.
Richard Hurst, of Lowell, is one of the white applicants named in the lawsuit. Hurst, 42, said Monday he endured three months of written and physical tests, interviews and a psychological evaluation before he discovered he did not get one of the jobs. Hurst ranked fourth on the 25-person list, and the city later hired at least five black applicants who ranked lower on the list, according to the lawsuit.
Hurst was "very upset" when he wasn't hired, he said.
"We went through a long, long testing process. A lot of hours were involved," he said. "Up until the very end, I was led to believe that within days I would be hired, and they pulled it all out from under us."
On Carmouche's claim that the black candidates were chosen because of residency, Hurst said applicants were told by a city supervisor that residency would not matter. Hurst said he would have moved to Gary if he was told the job required it.
The lawsuit focuses on the 25-person list city officials allegedly compiled in February 2006. The list said jobs would be offered to candidates in order of their rank until February 2007, according to the lawsuit. On Oct. 10, 2006, the city hired six black applicants who ranked Nos. 1, 5, 9, 10, 11 and 12 on the list, according to the lawsuit. The city did not offer jobs to white applicants ranked Nos. 2, 3, 4, 6, 7 and 8, the lawsuit says. The city hired another unranked black paramedic in November, the suit says.
The six white applicants filed complaints with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, and the commission found evidence supporting the complaints, the suit says. Commission officials tried unsuccessfully to resolve the complaints with the city, then referred the matter to the Department of Justice, the suit says.
Carmouche said the federal government never gave him information he would have needed to resolve the complaints.
The listing process described in the lawsuit is not part of city policy, and it never should have been used, Carmouche said. Civilians in the Fire Department made the list, Carmouche said.
"Why somebody down there would do that, I don't know," he said.
The jobs all were eliminated in city budget cutbacks, and none of the paramedics hired still works for the city, Carmouche said.
The suit seeks an injunction preventing the city from using discriminatory hiring, as well as an order stopping the city from refusing financial relief for the white paramedics.
Hurst said he doesn't want the job anymore.
"I would just like to see ... it be known that they did what they did," Hurst said.
