Federal lawsuit targets HFD

DOJ slams city over treatment of firefighters by male coworkers

The Justice Department sued the city of Houston on Wednesday over sex discrimination and harassment claims launched by two female firefighters who say their male coworkers tormented them over a two-year period by urinating on the women's bathroom walls and sinks and scrawling vulgar slurs on their belongings.

Male firefighters allegedly turned off the cold water in showers to scald their female coworkers and disconnected speakers to prevent women from responding to calls in a string of bad behavior that eventually escalated to death threats, according to the lawsuit.

The lawsuit is the first as part of a new initiative by the Justice Department to combat sexual harassment in the workplace, federal officials said.

"Far too often, women are targeted and harassed in the workplace because of their sex," Acting Assistant Attorney General John Gore of the Civil Rights Division said in announcing the suit. "Employees have the right to work in an environment that is free from sex discrimination and retaliation."

City officials said they had not yet seen the suit and declined to comment. Firefighter representatives pushed to see more evidence released in the case and decried long-standing criticism

of the department.

“Dozens of firefighters cooperated in the various investigations of this incident, but unfounded criticism of Houston firefighters has continued for years,” Houston Professional Fire Fighters Association President Marty Lancton said.

The claims at the center of the Justice Department case first drew attention nearly 10 years ago, when firefighters Jane Draycott and Paula Keyes reported finding racist and sexist graffiti scrawled on the women's dorm walls in summer 2009.

But the problems started months before that, according to court filings. As the only women working at Station 54 when they started, Draycott and Keyes were often ignored for entire shifts when their male coworkers refused to talk to them or eat with them.

“In early 2009, Draycott reported to her Captain that a firecracker exploded when she opened the door to the stall in the women's bathroom,” the suit says. “He laughed at her complaint.”

Repeatedly, they found urine on the sink and toilet in the women's bathroom, trash on their beds and cables missing from their TVs, according to court papers.

Then on July 7, 2009 — eight days after Draycott filed a sex discrimination complaint — the women showed up for work and found the n-word and “die b----” written on the walls.

Inside Draycott's locker, someone wrote “dead” on a picture of her daughter, who'd been killed in a car wreck, and “die” on a picture of Draycott, according to filings.

At the time, the department was already reeling amid other racial discrimination accusations after two noose-like knots were found in firehouses.

The city's Office of Inspector General looked into the women's allegations in 2009 but in the end decided there wasn't enough evidence to pinpoint a culprit.

The scandal, nevertheless, cast a shadow over HFD, and was one factor that led thenMayor Annise Parker to search for an outside candidate to lead the department.

When Draycott returned to work in early 2010 following her complaints, according to the suit, HFD retaliated against her by letting her coworkers publicly disparage her.

She filed a state court lawsuit against the department in 2010 detailing the 2009 graffiti incident and alleging sex discrimination dating back to 2000. But in mid-2010, she dropped the claim.

Draycott ultimately was forced into early retirement in 2011 due to “intolerable” working conditions, according to the Justice Department.

Details about whether Keyes remains with the department were not available, though the federal lawsuit seeks compensation for lost wages for both of them.

The DOJ lawsuit follows an Equal Employment Opportunity Commission finding in 2014 in favor of the two women at the center of the claim. The EEOC notified the city in 2016 that efforts to resolve the women’s charges were unsuccessful and that the case was being forwarded to the Justice Department.

Other women who previously had worked at the same station made similar complaints but the department failed to act, the lawsuit alleges.

The legal action seeks to force HFD to develop policies to prevent sex discrimination and retaliation, but it also asks for monetary relief for Draycott and Keyes, according to a press release.

“No employee should be subjected to a hostile work environment based on their sex,” said U.S. Attorney Ryan K. Patrick for the Southern District of Texas, based in Houston. “We will aggressively protect employees who are victims of sex discrimination and retaliation and pursue employers who violate the law.”

Representatives from the firefighters' association said the lawsuit underscored the need for city officials to make public the findings of an investigation involving 40 firefighters who were polygraphed and gave sworn statements or handwriting samples during the investigation.

“From the beginning of this controversy, Houston firefighters have wanted the perpetrator (s) of the incidents at Station 54 found and punished appropriately,” Lancton said in an emailed statement.

The union leader emphasized that the firefighters exonerated in the course of the investigation deserved to be recognized as such.

“Former Mayor Annise Parker rightly said in 2010 that Houston firefighters were ‘unjustly under a cloud.’ Eight years later, the cloud remains,” he said.

“The time has come for authorities to release all of the evidence in this case.

“Without a proper conclusion, the unjust ‘cloud’ will undermine a basic tenet of our justice system — innocent until proven guilty.”