MATTHEW F. FOGG,
Plaintiff,
Civil Action
No. 94-2814 (TPJ/DAR)
v.
JANET RENO, Attorney General of the United States,
Defendant.
EXPERT WITNESS REPORT: WALLACE RONEY
Qualifications
(1.) I have been a Deputy U.S. Marshal since 1970. Prior to joining the Marshals Service, I was a police officer in Washington, D.C. and in Philadelphia. I am an African American.
(2.) Since 1976, I have been President of the American Federation of Government Employee's International Council of Deputy United States Marshals' Locals, the authorized bargaining agent for all Deputy U.S. Marshals.
(3.) I have taken an active role in defending the rights of Black Deputy Marshals. In 1971, I formed the National Black U.S. Marshals Organization. I have been a plaintiff in numerous judicial and administrative actions challenging the racially discriminatory practices within the Marshals Service, I have testified before the Congress of the United States with respect to those practices and I have appeared with and on behalf of numerous Black Deputy Marshals in grievance proceedings.
4. I am not being compensated for my testimony in this proceeding.
5. I recall previously giving written or oral testimony or statements in the following judicial proceedings: Miller v. Saxbe, D.D.C. No. 74-1604; Miller v. Meese, D.D.C. No. 79-2405; AFGE, Intl. Council of U.S. Marshals Service Locals, 210 v. Reagan, D.D.C. Civ. No. 85-1587; Roney v. U.S. , D.D.C. No. 90-2813 (LFO); Bennett v. U.S., Cl. Ct. No. 565-78.
6. The U.S. Marshals Service is today, and has been since I entered it in 1970, a working environment hostile to Black Deputy Marshals. This is true in general, but it is particularly true at Headquarters and in the District of Columbia. This report does not include my potential testimony with respect to events involving Matthew Fogg as to which I have personal knowledge.
7. The unique structure of the Marshals Service lends itself to a buddy-buddy system. It is a small agency with approximately 3,700 employees. It is subject, at least in theory, to the usual civil service requirements. At the same time, it is an agency with a large number of political appointees, primarily the 94 U.S. Marshals, who rely on the agency's senior staff for assistance. This staff, which does not now and has not during my career included any African Americans, has an unusual amount of power. The key to long term success or failure within the Marshals Service is an employee's relationship with that staff. Black Deputy Marshals have an enormous disadvantage in that regard. Stated plainly, they do not have any "buddies" at Headquarters.
8. The efforts to resolve this problem are as old as the problem. In 1972, the Black Deputy U.S. Marshals Organization filed a third party EEO complaint alleging racial discrimination by the Marshals Service in promotions, disciplinary action and job assignments, In May 1973, a Department of Justice Complaint Adjudication Officer sustained the charges and directed the Marshals Service to undertake a number of remedial measures. The Marshals Service did almost nothing in that regard except retaliate against me.
9. As a result of that retaliation, I filed an EEO complaint in late 1972 and again in early 1973. On August 31, 1973, a Department of Justice Complaint Adjudication Officer found that the Marshals Service had retaliated against me and directed that a number of additional measures be taken to protect not only me, but all Black Deputies, from retaliation. The Officer found that "the Marshals Service has been involved for too long with time consuming and completely unnecessary RED problems." The Officer found that although disciplinary action against Marshals Service officials might be justified, none was required "at this time" because of the remedial measures allegedly being undertaken
10. Once again, however, the Marshals Service did almost nothing to correct the problem. In 1974, I initiated a class action against the Marshals Service on behalf of Black Deputy Marshals in the District of Columbia. At that time, the majority of all Black Deputy Marshals were assigned to D.C., but the buddy-buddy system kept the power in the hands of White supervisors. We settled the action in 1976 when the Attorney General agreed to create an interdepartmental commission to investigate the problems. In January 1977, the commission issued the Taft Report. A good summary of the Taft Report's conclusions were in an Court of Claims opinion several years later in a case involving our effort to enforce some of the recommendations in that report:
11. The situation for Black Deputy Marshals improved, but only slightly. Blacks were appointed as U.S. Marshals in the District of Columbia, but the real power remained with senior staff at Headquarters. For the most part, the Marshals Service ignored the Taft Commission's recommendations. We attempted to bring another class action in the late 1970's but found ourselves caught up in the terms of the 1976 settlement agreement. I pursued that action individually but unsuccessfully.
12. In July 1991, I wrote the Director of the Marshals Service detailing many of the racially hostile acts which had occurred and which were continuing to occur. The Marshals Service and the Union reached an agreement to create an Ad Hoc Committee to review the allegations and to make recommendations. The Commission issued its report, the Skagen Report, in August 1992. The report corroborated that serious racial problems existed, but it pretended that the problems had been solved or could be solved through paperwork. Only superficial corrective action was taken. For example, the Marshals Service finally got around to processing the 1985/86 RED complaint of Matthew Fogg and other long-standing complaints of Black employees. But the buddy-buddy system remained intact.
13. In October 1996, the Marshals Service conducted a review of the extent to which the Skagen Report recommendations had been implemented. Even though that review is incomplete and misleading, it still highlights the problem. Of the one dozen "major' recommendations made in the Skagen Report more than four years earlier, four were still "open" or "ongoing" and the others were purported to be closed on the basis of actions taken or recommendations made by Director Gonzalez in the prior twelve months.
14. The Marshals Service was and remains a white-at-the-top pyramid where Black Deputy Marshals do not have any advocates or friends. Twenty years ago, Black employees accounted for approximately 14% of the Marshals Service workforce, although primarily with lower paying jobs. As of Feb. 1995, the last RED Report year for the Marshals Service, Blacks accounted for only 12.6% of the total workforce. As you climb up the pyramid, you sea fewer and fewer Black faces: only 8% of Criminal Investigators are Black; less than 8% of the top grade, GM-15 employees are Black; and not one of the Senior Executive Service positions, the senior staff that has the real power, is or ever was filled by an African American, to the best of my knowledge. There are no Blacks in senior positions at the Training Academy. The most recent promotion list released by the Marshals Service did not contain the name of even one Black employee. The vast majority of the 94 Judicial Districts have no Black employees.
15. This working environment is very hostile to Black Deputy Marshals. Matt Fogg's case is a good example, but it hardly is the only one. I see examples every day and can and will testify to those examples. Black employees do not receive equal promotion opportunities. Black employees receive harsher disciplinary treatment. Black employees constantly are being investigated or threatened with investigation, particularly if they are engaging in EEO activities.
16. The basic problem is this: when
a Black Deputy U.S. Marshal looks into the future,
he or she sees far more dead ends than open roads. As I said, you
have to go along to get
along. You have to do your job as professionally as possible. That
is required by your oath
as a federal law enforcement officer. At the same time, if you do
your job too well, you can
get noticed, and attention is not what a Black Deputy wants. If
you challenge the racism
inherent in the system, as Matt Fogg and a few others have done,
you put your career at
risk through retaliation.
17. The irony is that this racially
hostile environment works against the best interests
of the service. The U.S. Marshals Service has every right to demand
a high level of
loyalty and respect from all Deputy Marshals. A Black U.S. Deputy
Marshal does not
dare demand that same level of loyalty and respect from the Marshals
Service. This
affects job performance and career development. It produces absurd
results, like driving
Matt Fogg one of the most highly decorated Deputy Marshals, out
of the Marshals Service.
Exhibits
18. I tentatively will rely on the
following exhibits, all of which are documents in the
possession of the Marshals Service: the 1976 Taft report; the 1992
Skagen Report; the
October 1996 review of the Skagen Report recommendations; and the
Marshals Service
EEO Division Feb. 1995 Annual Report.
This Report was prepared under my direction and supervision and summarizes
the expert
testimony I am prepared to give in this case on behalf of the Plaintiff.
Wallace Roney
President,
International Council of
U.S. Marshals Locals,
American Federation of Government Employees (AFGE)