NEW YORK — A firefighter was fired Wednesday after wearing an anti-affirmative-action T-shirt to work.
New York Post reported that 17-year fire service veteran wore offensive shirts with “Merit Matters” logos in his firehouse more than 50 times over a 10-month period in 2012.
Some of the shirts included slogans like “MADD — Minorities Against Dumbing Down,” which blamed court-ordered outreach to add minorities to the FDNY ranks for weakening the department, according to the report.
“He was creating a hostile work environment in the firehouse,” one source said. “It was so disruptive, it was causing problems.”
Another shirt he wore, with “Merit Matters” on it, insinuated that minorities didn’t earn their way into the department.
An FDNY spokesman confirmed that Commissioner Daniel Nigro approved the firefighter’s termination.
The move followed a recommendation from a judge that the firefighter should be fired for “malicious actions that were in the firehouse intended to harm and humiliate a fellow firefighter,” according to the report.
A long-running legal battle over minority recruits and allegedly biased FDNY entrance exams was settled last year when Mayor Bill de Blasio agreed to have the city pay out more than $100 million to 1,500 minority firefighter applicants.