Founded in 1969, the Boston Society of Vulcans of Massachusetts is a community-based, non-profit organization of Black and Latino firefighters in Boston. Their mission is to encourage urban Bostonians to pursue public safety careers. They also promote public safety and fire prevention through education programs and various other resources. The Boston Society of Vulcans is a member of the International Association of Black Professional Firefighters, an association formed in 1969 in New York City to address the larger issue of racial discrimination faced by African-American firefighters nationwide. The Boston Society of Vulcans descended from the Vulcan Society of the FDNY, a black fraternal order of firefighters organized in 1940 to promote diversity and aid minority recruitment to the ranks of civil servants.
Consent decree
In 1970, a lawsuit was brought
against the Massachusetts Civil Service Commission that “alleged that the
municipalities engaged in discriminatory recruitment and hiring practices whilst
staffing their respective fire departments.” Blacks and Latinos were virtually excluded from the fire service, making up 0.9 percent of the total number of firefighters in Boston in 1970. This did not reflect the minority population of Boston, which was around 16 percent at the time. This lawsuit resulted in "the entry of an omnibus consent decree" that revised the hiring practices of municipalities, also referred to Boston Chapter, NAACP v. Beecher, 371 F.Supp. 507, 520-23. The decree was “affirmed” in Boston Chapter, NAACP, Inc. v. Beecher, 504 F.2d 1017, 1028 (1st Cir.1974) (Beecher II), cert. denied, 421 U.S. 910, 95 S.Ct. 1561, 43 L.Ed.2d 775 (1975). The Beecher decree has been redefined since the first Beecher decision in 1974 but has “remained the guiding principle governing the hiring of firefighters in much of Massachusetts.”
A. Recruitment
The fire department's Human Resource Department was tasked with recruiting
minority candidates to take the entrance examination by distributing
information to minority applicants through the media, schools, and community
groups. This allowed for a more diverse group of applicants.
B. Examinations
Examinations must be pass/fail to produce a pool of qualified
minority applicants. Federal Judge Wyzanski found that the public safety examinations overemphasized scholastic skills that were “set higher than what is required” for performance.” Also, future examinations were required to be validated under EEOC guidelines.
C. Certification Ratios
The Consent Decree mandated that minority and non-minority
candidates be certified “one minority to every three non-minority to Boston and
Springfield.” Also, the Civil Service Commission‘s lists must be in a specific
order: near the head of the list were disabled veterans, children of public
safety officers killed or injured in the line of duty, veterans, etc.
D. Appointment/ Reasons for Bypass
This requirement prevents appointing authority from hiring
only non-minorities on the Human Resource Department's certified list unless an affirmative reason for bypass is presented. In other words, this ensures that candidates are bypassed only for job-related reasons as opposed to racial ones.
E. Parity
The Consent Degree requires that the percentage of Latino
and Black fire officers be close to the number of Black and Latino individuals
in the community, about 26 percent. In 1981, the number of minority firefighters reached 160, or about 14.7 of the total.