Judge Rejects White FBI Agents’ Challenge to Black Promotions

A judge on Friday rejected a challenge by white FBI agents to a plan for promoting more blacks at the federal law enforcement agency.

U.S. District Judge Thomas Hogan ruled that there has been a “manifest imbalance” in FBI promotions over the years that worked to the advantage of white agents. Hogan also said it is not discriminatory to exclude the FBI Agents Assn. from a seat on a review committee at the bureau that will work out ways to promote more blacks.

The plan to promote blacks “represents limited relief, specifically tailored to meet the problem,” Hogan said in a ruling after a hearing.

The agents’ association tried to block an agreement that the FBI reached with black agents in January. That agreement puts bureau employment practices under a federal judge’s supervision for five years, and calls for the promotion of six black agents and the transfer of an additional 57 blacks who contend that they were victims of racial bias.

The agency also agreed to make another 13 black agents relief supervisors and to open training slots for another 40 black agents.

Among the FBI’s some 10,400 agents nationwide, 520, or about 5%, are black. About 90% are white males.

The agents’ association had argued that there was no legal basis for taking drastic steps of directing promotions and transfers of blacks.

“Blacks are promoted equally and transferred equally with whites,” Stephen Shulman, representing the agents’ association, told the judge. Shulman said that in some job categories, a higher percentage of blacks who apply are promoted than whites.

“I have observed that the FBI engaged in systematic discrimination in favor of black agents in both hiring and promotions,” FBI agent Christopher Kerr of the association said after the court hearing.

Shulman said the group would consider appealing Hogan’s ruling.