Nolan Perroni, PC was very proud to represent Methuen firefighter Tracy Blanchette in her courageous fight against systemic discrimination in Methuen's fire service, which fight resulted in this landmark victory. Every level of government actively worked against the appellant in order to preserve a culture of favoritism and gender bias. The Civil Service Commission here has, in a 58-page stinging decision, called the City on the carpet, not just for their discriminatory employment practices, but for concealing conflicts of interest, for outright ignoring complaints of gender bias and for the repeatedly dishonest sworn-testimony by top ranking city officials.
In light of the intolerable conduct proven in this significant case, the Commission is prepared to issue the very rare remedy or ordering that the City promote Ms. Blanchette from private to Captain, with all back pay and benefits.
In concluding that gender bias fatally undermined the justification for bypass offered by the City, the Commission found that Blanchette has had a remarkable 26+ year career, despite the obvious challenges associated with being the City's first female firefighter and only ever Methuen firefighter to give birth and manage a family working 24-hour shifts.
Among other things, the Commission found:
- Given how dubious I am of much of Chief Sheehy’s testimony concerning the process, the City’s evidence is not credible and cannot be relied upon to sustain its burden of proof in this bypass appeal.
- The predisposition in Tulley's favor was compounded by Chief Sheehy's predisposition against Blanchette due to a proven personal and institutional bias against her in which her gender was a contributing factor.
- Sheehy thinks the number of women firefighters - three - is sufficient...he sees no need to increase the number, to recruit women into the fire service, or to take any proactive steps to encourage more female applicants in Methuen. He has never done so, nor has he ever thought about doing so. As is often the case with unconscious biases, some people simply refuse to acknowledge them, no matter how obvious they may appear to others.
- multiple witnesses testified about the mutual back-scratching employment culture available to the male but not the female firefighters of the MFD.
- Blanchette was treated unfairly, in violation of the basic merit principles set forth in GL c. 31, Sec. 1, and that instead gender bias fatally undermined the justification for bypass offered by the City.
- Chief Sheehy exercised great influence over the other three interview panelists (two of whom had never worked in the fire service), going so far as to advise them at the start of the interview process of the answers he expected to hear based on the questions posed to the candidates.
- It is plainly evident to me that all the contractual and other internal processes normally in place to ensure fair treatment were, in fact, unavailable to her, and instead were actively or passively working against her.
- Despite being a city of over 50,000 people, Methuen has only had four female firefighters in its history...Chief Sheehy seemingly does not believe that women are underrepresented in the Methuen Fire Department. When asked if he would consider requesting an all women's civil service list to address this issue, Sheehy replied, "I don't think we're lacking in numbers, though," and "I didn't even know there was an all female list where I could grab a few."
- Chief Sheehy testified, "I'm not looking to recruit women."
- Despite his long tenure as Union President and the existence of discriminatory conditions (women barred from certain shifts, locations and assignments reserved for men only), Sheehy never filed a greivance to remedy this disparate treatment of female firefighters.
- The record persuasively demponstrated that Blanchette was consistently scored unfairly during the internal interview presided over by Chief Sheehy.
- I can remember no other example of the use of a post-Assessment Center promotional process that was as flawed as this one...
- Anne Randazzo, the City's Human Resources Director and Chief Equal Employment Officer, did not testify forthrightly.
- The City Council ignored Blanchette's gender discrimination complaint. It approved the promotion of Tulley on February 4, 2019, after receiving Appellant’s detailed complaint of gender discrimination. The Council never asked a single question of Chief Sheehy during its meeting and Councilor McCarty voted in favor of Tulley without even mentioning his family relationship with the Intervenor.
- Randazzo is the City official responsible for investigating complaints of discrimination. She was directly involved in this case. She never even considered looking into the complaint, even though she received a copy from either Chief Sheehy or the Council shortly after it was filed...For that matter, neither did the Mayor, the Chief, the Council, or the Union.