New York Fire Department Turns SEAL Down due to Age
Shaun Donovan. (New York Post)
Special Operations Chief Shaun Donovan is due to leave the military next year. But, he didn’t wait to lay the groundwork to start his next career… To be a firefighter for the New York Fire Department.
He spent leave days, $1,3331.00, and a couple of trips, to take the written and physical exams. He passed both, scoring in the upper 1% in the written exam from almost 44,000 applicants. Being a decorated SEAL, with four combat deployments, he’d be a shoe in, right?
Nope.
He was turned down due to his age. Even with his military exception factored in, he exceeded their upper limit. They didn’t want to factor in the fact that he was given permission to take a make up test later in the year due to his military requirements.
From the Washington Examiner:
The Navy SEAL, who enlisted after college and served four combat tours in Iraq and Afghanistan, appealed the decision. Fire Commissioner Daniel Nigro rejected it.
“It is always painful for the city to have to reject a job candidate, especially one who is serving to protect our country. However, the rules cannot be changed for one person,” Department of Administrative Services spokeswoman Jacqueline Gold said.
The Post reports several African American and Hispanic firefighters have been hired in their 30s and 40s following discrimination suits. Donovan appealed the decision with the Civil Service Commission and has obtained pro bono legal support to consider all options if that request is denied.
The New York Post has details on one of those that was able to get in while in his forties.
One of them, Hazim Tawfiq, joined at age 44, after first being rejected for having a rap sheet that included gun possession and beating subway fares. The department cited a lack of “good character” and “moral integrity,” but relented because Tawfiq was in the federal suit.
One would think that after a federal suit, some adjustments could be made… Especially if those who are over 35 prove that they could meet the standards for both training and real emergencies. Compared to the others that were allowed in beyond the maximum age, there’s a good chance that Chief Shaun Donovan had to keep in better shape… And had to deal with more physically demanding work.
You can read more at the Washington Examiner and at the New York Post.
Category: Veterans in the news
I’m sure that they’d rather hire a transsexual buck toothed Sudanese Circus Midget in the name of “diversity” .
With a man-bun and unable to carry a 60lb weight up or down stairs….
This sickens me.
I will be at the FDNY next week and will mention this to him.
Please do. This reeks of utter BS. “The rules cannot be changed for one person.” Uh, no…but waivers CAN be granted. Any recruiter can tell you that.
Go MCPO, Go!!! I hope you are successful.
This is nuts. I have to wonder if one of the admin types is holding a slot open for a friend’s spawn. Or maybe the entrance procedures work like the colleges have been lately.
Neither of what you mention would surprise me even the least, corruption, nepotism and cronyism runs rampant in big cities!
Seems like there is an easy solution here. Donovan changes his name to Hakmed Mohammed and his gender to “none of the above” and he’s a shoo-in, right?
Yeah, if he had just not checked those blocks that said “White, Male, heterosexual” than he would be able to sue the pants off of NYC for discrimination when he was denied. Instead they are standing their ground on “no exceptions for age” when clearly there are exceptions made quite often.
37? Hell, he probably has the body of a 25 year old.
No way you can let those others in or how about some of the recruits who don’t pass the physical requirements and are STILL sent to firehouses.
He’ll get in. I’m sure of it.
Straight white non-Leftist veteran males need not apply– age was just the excuse.
I wonder if the NYFD would let me be a firefighter?
Obviously, they some issues that are not easily resolved in their hiring procedures.
Maybe Chief Donovan should go out and punch a woman and steal candy from a baby, maybe that would make him more desirable in the eyes of the NYFD.
First off, what the heck are they thinking?
Secondly, they let him spend money, spend leave, etc., to take their tests and then AFTER all that they say, “ohhh, you’re too old!”
I question the competence of their recruiting personnel if they didn’t identify his age at the beginning. (Granted, I foresee them letting him in because now it’s a news story and they don’t want to lose face.)
I can take a stab at what they are thinking, as a lot of New York City cops and firefighters are in my PSYOP unit. So I get a lot of stories and can conclude that there’s two issues that drive this.
The first is the age consideration, how many good years does he have left? How much training and money will they spend on him only to have his body fall apart and then they owe him a medical retirement. At least that’s the standard excuse when it comes to age based limitations.
The second, and likely larger reason is politics. He’s going to come in as a hard charging bad mamma-jamma and how likely is he to let himself be treated like a rookie again? And should he be treated as a rookie? But if you don’t treat him like a rookie, then how can you treat other rookies like rookies? Its worse than that though, because if he tolerates being treated like a rookie, he’s also going to be a top performer. This means he’s going to be getting fast tracked for promotions. And he’s going to get them. This means people who aren’t quite as hard but who have more seniority are going to get passed over…and those guys don’t want that. So they’ll block him now, so they don’t have to block him later. And by blocking him later I mean make his life a living hell to try and get him to quit.
Now neither of those reasons are very good. But they are what they are.
Also PSYOP. Now retired.
Six more years…and it aint what it used to be.
Doesn’t NOT hiring him, as opposed to hiring the guy with a record, violate discrimination laws? Or something like that?
Change name to Mohamed and apply as a black female, it works for everybody else.–https://youtu.be/aDa5Nvzel1M
https://youtu.be/aDa5Nvzel1M
Again– https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aDa5Nvzel1M&feature=youtu.be
Watched the video – until the 2nd woman ran her mouth. I wanted to punch her smug pretentious mouth. Still do damn it.
Yup shitbags confirmed. Bullshit on the age otherwise all the fat lazy old fucks would have been kicked out.
Huh, who knew that a shithole city with a shitty Democratic Mayor would make exceptions for shitbags with gun convictions and refuse to take a decorated veteran.
I hope he sues the living shit out of the city over age discrimination. I hope he wins and I hope he makes enough off of the suit to not worry about working again and lives a good life doing whatever he wants in a city that will appreciate having a veteran working for them.
Meanwhile, a morbidly obese profile riding SOB is collecting a check because he ruptured an Achilles 5 years ago on his boat and claimed it was on the job.
Remember when Men were judged for what they did and what they’re capable of?
How dare you dickweeds infer that this man should be hired on skills and ability! He’s a white male, presumably heterosexual, possibly a… a… Christian!! He’s pure eebil!
It’s important to included gender these days lest we be accused to micro aggressions against our more feeble minded fellow civilian citizens…
He appears to be by all accounts a CIS Gendered, Heterosexual, White Male Veteran who continues to believe in service to community after service to nation as do so many of our brothers and sisters in the military. This makes him the most likely individual to be discriminated against without repercussion in a shithole like New York.
So, he’s pretty much the poster child for “The Patriarchy”.
You left out “Irish”.
#irishneednotapply
#micklivesmatter
#eringobrawl
#nodogsorirish
Funny you mention this. A couple years back some cock-mongering Lib professor put out an article saying that the entire story of Irish suffering from discrimination was fabricated as a means to downplay the discrimination suffered by the “Real Victims” ( IE Minorities).
A young girl in middle school actually did the research and found scores of 19th century news articles and ads demeaning Irish. Including the phrase “Irish need not apply” and presented a research paper that called the guy out.
Good thing the mayor is working on real issues facing the city. Issues like climate change. Meaningful changes like eliminating meat on Mondays and no longer allowing inefficient glass and steel high rises.
The Chief here should go to any other major city and apply. He’d be a top candidate for any FD.
You mean eliminating meat for the peasants on Monday of course. The tax payers will still have to pay the burden of his Filet Mignon every Monday night with lobbyists who will be happy with paying for his comfort, lest they be jailed or evicted from his lands.
My friends son, a Fordham University graduate scored almost a 100 on the FDNY test but was turned down because he is white and at that time, they had to use the quota system for applicants trying to get on the job and minorities getting promoted to LT, Capt, etc, and were appointed even though their test score was below someone of not their color. My friends son is now a supervisor in the NYPD for over 20 years now. After 9/11, the FD Vulcan society demanded that the Dept hire the same amount of black members that were lost in the trade center.
Jeff,
Spot on. Back in the early 90’s, I scored 96 on the FDNY written, and 100 on the physical. I was early in my time in the reserves, and did not qualify for Vet points, so I came in at something like 3640 on the list (18kish took that test), At the time, they granted points for Vet, disabled vet, and of course minority…
Ohh, and the vulcan society is a bunch of racist assholes!
Reverse discrimination against White Boys with no connections has been ongoing for a good little while now. After my ETS in 74, I was turned down for a multitude of jobs that I was either already qualified to do or trainable to do those jobs, high scores on all of their tests. I finally asked one HR dude, “Is me shooting spitballs at the blackboard still on my permanent records as the 4th grade teacher said it would be?” He got up, closed the door and admitted he could not hire a white Vietnam Veteran. Never was in country stated I. Don’t matter says he. No reason, just unofficial company policy. One reason I stayed in the wholesale business as long as I did. They hired my on my abilities, not the darkness of my tan, gender, or ethinticity.
Hate it for the taxpaying citizens of NYC (not too many of them), but like others, I hope he does sue the crap out of them, wins bigly, and brings his winnings down South where any multitudes of cities would hire him.
Why would he want to be a firefighter in Gotham?
Eff that.
Join Triple canopy or sometin.
Maybe hes tired of shooting stuff and/or people… that’s why I haven’t gone back to law enforcement and don’t intend to.
The primary lesson I learned from a six months stint with a PMC was its one thing to pull a trigger for Family, God, and Country and a completely different thing to pull a trigger for a paycheck.
Not “diverse” enough to be allowed the proper exception.
OK. My default position is to support age restrictions for police and fire departments for the same reasons that I support them for military service. However, that said, what the ever-loving h*ll were any of these clowns thinking? Allow an obviously otherwise well qualified individual to complete the process in spite of the equally obvious age issue? Allow some folks to be hired with disqualifying factors but not others??
You’d think that perhaps some renegades during the hiring process wanted to shine some light on the hypocrisy of it all…
Well, I can think of at least a dozen fire departments in California who would love to hire him if New York wants to be like that. The age limit is higher here, and his SEAL experience would push him right to the top of the hiring pile, provided he has his EMT and a couple of basic cents.
Hell, one of the guys in my basic fire academy almost two decades ago had just retired from the Marines as a bird colonel. He was offered a job, too, but wound up taking some contract consulting slot that offered five times the salary instead. A few years ago, I had a guy on my engine who is my Dad’s age, came in from a mid-life career switch. Damn good fireman, too. I don’t have the authority to hire people, but CPO Donovan would be welcome on my engine anytime.
That’s kind of my take, but even in some CA departments the cronyism and politics that get played are sickening.
When I got out I knew one thing for sure: that I’d never even consider, let alone apply, for a city/county job in LA, no matter how qualified I was (are you reading this, LADWP?)
Ohio had a rule that said you had to retire by the age of 55 if you were a line firefighter. You also had to work 20 years to get a full pension. This made the age you could be hired at a max of 34. Military would allow you to “buy out” four years of your FD pension making the max 37.
I moved to Kentucky for hire pay and no age limit.
Was he aware of the age constraints when he began the qualification process?
Maybe he was below the age constraint when he began the hiring process? Don’t know for sure, but that could be a possibility. That, and how everything is worded on the app.
It’s NYC’s loss. He has the ambition, desire, ability and experience to do the job and to be a leader.
Waivers are not good practice, to my estimation.
Here’s to his success in finding a better fit where qualifications are non-discriminatory.
“He was turned down due to his age. Even with his military exception factored in, he exceeded their upper limit. They didn’t want to factor in the fact that he was given permission to take a make up test later in the year due to his military requirements.”
The way I read this is that the delay due to deployment pushing him to the makeup test date pushed him past the max age. I definitely don’t have his background, but I came up against the age limit after 9/11 when I tried to reapply, ad yeah, I check the same demographic boxes as the chief. I agree with everyones comments 100% that waivers are only given to “certain ” groups that check different boxes..
I read the same thing, before posting it above. However, what’s also posted above puts the fire department on difficult footing on the account of what I quoted above:
One of two scenarios.
Scenario 1: A court intervened as a result of a lawsuit. When a court intervenes and requires an organization to take action they otherwise wouldn’t take, and that court order still stands, then the policies have to be changed to be consistent with the court order.
Scenario 2: The fire department decided to settle out of court by letting them in. This scenario opens the door for future lawsuits if similar consideration isn’t given to others who could be discriminated against for similar reasons.
Depending on either scenario, the department allowed people in who were above the age limit. Depending on the court order, if there is one, or the circumstances that led to the above being allowed in, policy has to be adjusted.
Otherwise, they’re opening the door for future lawsuits, like the one the above SEAL is looking at doing if a favorable decision isn’t made in his case. Case precedence has already been established in his favor.
I was going to say, sorry, rules are rules, but they should have told you before the process began.
THEN I say the exceptions they were making, so fuck them. Hope that if he really wants to work for them after all this shit he can pressure them into doing the right thing.
When I was retiring I was looking at the Border Patrol, but I would have been too old. You have to be under 38 when you finish the Academy. Age Limit was 58 and needed 20 to retire.
Fuck them. I bet there are hundreds of Fire Depts across this country that would love to have a man of that caliber.
Sure would like to know the details of the following: “The Post reports several African American and Hispanic firefighters have been hired in their 30s and 40s following discrimination suits.”
Diversity opens an awful lot of doors and not all of them are to my liking but until I hear the details, I’ll leave it at that.
Bound to be some simple solutions created by the T A H gang. Start with this…..I will personally donate to the SEAL five spray cans of black paint. Next, he needs to find a dentist who will replace a few of his front teeth with gold ones. Would be a real plus if he claimed he did not know who his daddy is. From my end, finally, get the poor dude some blue Chapstick. Oh yea, get him to start wearing skivvies just above his butt crack.
Palm a few large on a handshake.
I don’t know Chief Shaun Donovans age (37?) but I believe in N.J if you have military the age limit is 42. (I pretty sure) but correct me if I am wrong and you can purchase military time back towards your pension. I think anyone who gives part of their life 1 year or 20 should get waived especially Chief Donovan they let him take the test for christs sake. Come and work in N.J we would be honored Chief Donovan . Sorry scored down on all the posts had to comment right away