A federal appeals court has rejected a white man’s claim that he was fired by former Baltimore Comptroller Jacqueline McLean in a “purge” of white males from the upper management of her office.
Ronald A. Brown sued McLean, who is black, for firing him in 1992 from his job as administrator of telephone facilities and refusing to rehire him.
Brown claimed in his 1995 suit that McLean was acting under a city affirmative action plan that violated his 14th Amendment equal protection rights and the Civil Rights Act of 1964.
A three-judge panel of the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals on Friday upheld a lower court decision to toss out Brown’s suit, saying he had not proved his case.
Chief Judge J. Harvie Wilkinson dissented, saying Brown’s claim that his firing violated the Civil Rights Act should not have been rejected.
“The purported `reorganization’ of the comptroller’s office was little more than a racial reshuffle,” Wilkinson wrote.
Court documents say that McLean complained about the lack of diversity in her office from her first day, Dec. 3, 1991, even ordering portraits of white males removed from the walls.
On the advice of her transition team, she said, she proposed eliminating three of the top four positions in her office, combining jobs as a cost-cutting move. The three positions targeted for elimination were held by white men, the fourth job was held by a black woman.
In May 1992, Brown got a letter from McLean that said his job was being eliminated, through no fault of his own, as the municipal post office and telephone departments were combined into a Communications Services Department.
Brown said he assumed he would be put on the list for the new director of communications services job, since Baltimore City regulations require that any city worker whose job is eliminated take priority on a re-employment list for a similar job.
But the Civil Service Commission put Brown on a list for a telephone supervisor’s job, an occupied, low-level position for which he was over-qualified.
The city said it could not list Brown for the new position because the job had just been created. Besides, city officials argued, Brown would not have been listed for the new job because it was at a higher level than his abolished position.
According to court documents, Brown never contacted the commission to challenge his placement, nor did he apply for the communications director’s job.
Rochelle Young was hired to work as communications director in the interim. Young, a black man, was eventually given the job permanently.
Brown sued, saying the city’s affirmative action plan constituted a race- and gender-based employment policy in violation of the Civil Rights Act and the 14th Amendment.
But the federal district court in Baltimore rejected Brown’s suit, saying he did not prove there was a citywide policy that violated his equal protection rights.
It also said that Brown failed to show a history of discrimination on McLean’s part that would have made it futile for him to apply for the new position. Because he did not apply for the new job, the court said, Brown could not claim he was discriminated against.
The 4th Circuit agreed.
Brown was disappointed with the appellate decision and plans to file a motion for reconsideration, his attorney said Wednesday.
“We believe there’s a disparity between the majority and minority … racial programs have no place in the workplace, particularly in the government workplace,” said Howard J. Schulman.
But Kathryn E. Kovacs, assistant solicitor for the Baltimore City Law Department, said she does not think “that there are any grounds for going forward with the case.”
“It’s not a wave-making case,” she said. “It’s just another failure-to-apply-for-a-job case.”
McLean stepped down from the comptroller’s job and was placed on five years’ probation in 1994 for stealing over $25,000 in taxpayer funds, according to published reports.
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