Activists Hope Cadet Program Helps Diversify Boston Fire Department

While the city's new fire cadet program has been approved, advocates said it's critical that the implementation of the plan is "done right" to ensure a diverse pipeline in the Boston Fire Department, the whitest public safety agency in the city.

The cadet program — in which young adult city residents will learn the firefighting ropes and then have an advantage in applying to BFD — has been a focus of the Boston Society of the Vulcans for more than a decade.

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The leader of the Vulcans, a nonprofit comprised of firefighters of color, said on Monday it's key that the group is "at the table in shaping and implementing the cadet program."

"It's a major step forward in ensuring all true residents of Boston have a chance to become firefighters in the city of Boston," Darrell Higginbottom, president of the Vulcans, said of the new program.

"This is not a victory lap," he said, adding, "The hard work continues with many more challenges ahead."

The BFD is a predominantly white institution. The department is 72% white and 28% people of color, while minorities make up about 54% of the city population.

The fire department is also 94% male. There are only a handful of female firefighters in the department, which has come under fire recently over allegations of sexism, as outlined in a city-commissioned report last year.

"We celebrate the accomplishment of this new fire cadet program, but we know it's only the first of many steps that need to come to make diversity in the Boston Fire Department a reality," said Sophia Hall, an attorney for Lawyers for Civil Rights.

"... The steps that are going to be essential to ensuring that this program actually meets its goal, that it creates a real pipeline for Black and brown youth who want to access this highly impressive field where they can give back to their communities," she added.

The program is the result of legislation recently passed at the State House. It was initiated as a home rule petition by the city in 2019.

Boston City Councilor Andrea Campbell called the program a "huge legislative accomplishment" for the city.

"This program has an incredible and tremendous opportunity to not only change the numbers within our fire department, which is the least diverse of all of our city's public safety agencies," she said, "but to also create economic opportunity for folks who desperately need it, and who want to be a part of our public safety agencies and who want access to these employment opportunities."

"It has to be done right," Campbell added. "It's really important that the Vulcans be at the table along with others. ... There are many folks who want to be at the table. It is extremely important that firefighters who have the lived experience be at the table to shape this policy and this program."

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