Attorney Says FAA Told Plaintiff He Was "Wrong Color For The Job"

Michael Ryan says FAA repeatedly passed him over for promotion because he is white and male. The case, Michael C. Ryan v. Norman Y. Mineta, Secretary, US. Department of Transportation, pits merit promotion principles against the FAA’s unlawful affirmative action program.

In a rare legal move, Chief Judge John W. Bissell of Federal District Court, District of New Jersey, granted Ryan’s motion to sue his employer, the federal government, for violating his constitutional right to equal protection.  Judge Bissell and a jury will consider this case under, respectively, the US Constitution’s equal protection clause and Title VII of the United States Code. Trial will begin on April 28, 2004. Hanan M. Isaacs represents the plaintiff, Ryan. US Attorney Christopher Christie represents the Secretary of the Department of Transportation.

Michael C. Ryan is a white male employee at the FAA’s William J. Hughes Technical Center, in Atlantic City (NJ). The FAA has repeatedly denied Ryan’s promotion bids, despite his respected 28-year career at the Agency.  Between 1995 and 1997, Ryan was denied eight promotions for which he applied and for which his lawyer, Hanan Isaacs, says he was well-qualified. Seven of the eight individuals chosen for the disputed jobs were minorities or women. Ryan had trained one of the eight selectees, an African American woman, when she was first recruited to the FAA under a special program for minorities and women. When promoted ahead of Ryan, who was her former teacher, this individual had 13 years less seniority than he did.

Isaacs says he'll show four of the seven challenged applicants were not merit-selected, but rather were chosen so that managers could meet the FAA’s minority and female promotion quotas established under what he calls an unlawful Affirmative Action Plan. Isaacs says he can also prove Ryan was denied promotions because, as stated by an FAA employee who worked for one of the selecting officials, he was "the wrong color for the job."

Ryan and his lawyer say the FAA used an unwritten but well publicized "50-50" policy, under which FAA managers were required, as a condition of their own performance reviews, to promote women and minorities at least 50% of the time. Managers received financial and career incentives to meet and exceed those promotion goals, and were warned that they would be held accountable if they did not. Ryan’s lawsuit seeks to have those policies declared void as a matter of federal constitutional and statutory law.

Ryan has been an FAA employee since 1976. Until 1986, when his career stalled, Ryan had received numerous awards and promotions, rising steadily to a GS-14 level. In 1988, the FAA produced an Affirmative Action Plan, calling for "a workforce that looks like America by 2000." But in reports sent to the highest levels of FAA management in the 1990’s, Ryan’s expert witness told the FAA that its plans violated US. Supreme Court case law, as interpreted by US. Justice Department guidelines issued especially for federal agencies. That witness, John G. Larsen, a current FAA senior manager, will testify at trial, along with other senior managers who recognize that the FAA’s Affirmative Action policies are fundamentally flawed.

Ryan is asking for a promotion, back pay, pain and suffering damages, counsel fees, a declaratory judgment, and injunctive relief.

FMI: www.faa.gov