SAN DIEGO (KGTV) — A claim of racial discrimination in the U.S. Navy's promotion process was shot down in federal court, according to a press release from the U.S. Attorney's Office for the Southern District of California. The jury returned a unanimous verdict in favor of the United States on Thursday, Oct. 27.
The case looked at the process for promoting civilian engineers at the Fleet Readiness Center Southwest, a facility supporting America's aviation warfighters with repair and maintenance of Navy and Marine Corps aircraft.
Specifically, a white engineer claimed a Hispanic applicant got a promotion for a high-level supervisory engineering position over him in 2018 because of his race, the press release states. Plaintiff Brett Gardner claimed the person who made the hiring decision, a Hispanic woman, discriminated against him based on race, the release says.
After a long, drawn-out administrative process and two years of litigation in U.S. District Court, the case made it to trial on Oct. 24.
"During four days of evidence, multiple current and former FRCSW employees testified about the thorough, unbiased process the Navy follows to ensure that promotion decisions are based on merit, not on impermissible factors such as race, ethnicity, national origin, sex, or disability," the release stated.
One of the department heads at FRCSW created a three-member advisory panel to evaluate the applicants for the supervisor role back in 2018. One of those members was the equal employment opportunity representative for the process, and they had received EEO training right before the candidate interviews, the release says.
All three panel members testified at the trial, saying the candidates were asked the same interview questions and their resumes were independently reviewed and scored. Furthermore, they testified that the candidates were scored based on merit and that the person they chose for the job outperformed the plaintiff in the interview process.
The department head followed the panel's recommendation after they gave her the scores.
"Many witnesses testified about the selecting official, emphasizing that she makes promotion decisions based on qualifications, not on race or other impermissible factors," the release says. "She had promoted numerous Navy engineers of many races over the past decades, and she did not consider race in any of those decisions."
The seven-person jury deliberated for less than an hour before returning the unanimous verdict in the Navy's favor.
First Assistant U.S. Attorney Andrew Haden says the verdict confirms the Navy's process in this case was fair and merit-based.
