Secret Service to pay $24 million to black agents over decades-old race discrimination case
The Secret Service, the federal agency tasked with protecting the President, agreed on Tuesday to pay $24 million to more than 100 of its black agents who claim that their superiors fostered racism, according to court documents.
The settlement puts to rest a contentious, nearly two-decade-old case that was brought by black agents who deemed their work environment blatantly discriminatory, with white agents getting routinely promoted over more qualified African-Americans.
“I am pleased that we are able to finally put this chapter of Secret Service behind us,” Homeland Security Secretary Jeh Johnson, whose department includes the Secret Service, said in a statement. “Had the matter gone to trial, it would have required that we re-live things long past, just at a time when the Secret Service is on the mend…This settlement is also, simply, the right thing to do.”
Homeland Security Secretary Jeh Johnson, who spearheaded the talks, said the settlement was "simply, the right thing to do.”
(Manuel Balce Ceneta/AP)Despite Johnson proclaiming victory, part of the settlement specifies that the agency admits no wrongdoing or institutional bias, according to documents obtained by the Washington Post.
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Nonetheless, the payments — which include individual lump sums as high as $300,000 — remedy the black agents' missed opportunities, the prosecution’s lead attorney Jennifer Klan told the newspaper.
“At long last…black Secret Service agents will not be constrained by the glass ceiling that held back so many for so long,” she said.
The case focused on black agents who repeatedly asked for promotions between 1995 and 2005. More than often, white agents with less experience were chosen over them, the plaintiffs charged. The lead plaintiff, Ray Moore, was on President Bill Clinton’s security detail and asked for a promotion 200 times, but was turned down each time.
The plaintiffs also charged that they often overheard their bosses using racial slurs to describe black people, including world leaders.
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Beyond the monetary settlement, the Secret Service will launch a hotline for agents to report bias, and will also change its hiring procedures and keep detailed records on promotion factors.
The suit, which was first filed in the President Clinton-era, has in the past been vehemently rejected by Secret Service officials, who denied the notion that there was a “glass ceiling” holding back black agents.
With News Wire Services
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