Things are about to get a lot hairier at the FDNY.
The fire department was ordered to turn the other cheek by a Brooklyn judge and allow firefighters with a painful medical condition to remain on full duty even if their ailment prevents them from getting a clean shave.
Judge Jack Weinstein ruled Wednesday that the FDNY must reinstate a medical accommodation given to four African-American firefighters.
The department rescinded an accommodation made in May 2018, and demanded firefighters Salik Bey, Terrel Joseph, Stephen Seymour and Clyde Phillips remain clean shaven, even though they suffer from pseudofolliculitis barbae, a skin condition where beard hairs curve back and penetrate the skin.
For people with the condition, shaving with a razor is painful and can cause scarring.
“I’m relieved,” Bey said. “I’m just glad that we’re allowed to go back and do what we’ve been doing for years.”
Bey and the others were unfairly yanked out of their firehouses and reassigned to light duty, their attorney Tahanie Aboushi said.
Adding insult to injury, they were ordered to FDNY headquarters, where they were “treated inhumanely” as department heads “poked and prodded their faces, rubbed their faces and felt around their faces,” according to legal papers.
When they were hired by the fire department, all four received a medical clearance that allowed them to sport close-cropped stubble as long as they passed a “fit test” to ensure their breathing masks fit securely.
The quartet worked under the exception for years and each was “permitted to maintain very slight and barely noticeable facial hair,” the court papers indicated.
But the FDNY shredded its own policy to be in step with federal Occupational Safety and Health Administration rules demanding that a firefighter’s facial hair "does not protrude under the respirator seal, or extend far enough to interfere with the device’s function.”
Wednesday’s decision reinstates medical clearances for all firefighters struggling with pseudofolliculitis barbae, explained Aboushi.
“My clients dedicated their lives to running into burning buildings to save people they never met. They’ve always put the public first, but were marginalized and discriminated against over something not of their choice.
“The FDNY has had a lot of struggles with discrimination,” Aboushi said. “I’m glad we could level the playing field.”
Firefighter Joseph said he and his co-plaintiffs were unable to do overtime because of the shaving requirements and routinely had to take medical leave.
“I was relieved of duty just five days ago because I was asked to shave four times in one day because of my condition,” Joseph explained. “That was after I explained the issue. I ended up telling them, ‘If you ask me to shave again I’m going to have to go on a medical leave because my skin is going to be irritated and start bleeding.’
“There was no empathy toward the situation at all,” he said.
Aboushi, who is also a candidate in the upcoming race for Manhattan District Attorney, said her clients agreed to shave in order to return to full duty.
“They were forced to cut their own faces,” their attorney said. “Some would suffer gashes, but they accepted disfigurement and the irritations that come with their conditions so they could be reinstated. Their job and the safety of the public were more paramount to their own legal rights.”
In his decision, Judge Weinstein noted that the FDNY gave affected firefighters "an objectionable ‘take it or leave it’ proposition: shave down to the skin with a razor and risk permanent injury or be reassigned to light duty.
“Placement on light duty... was inarguably adverse to (these firefighters),” Weinstein wrote. “A blow to those who visualize themselves as public servants. (They) were forced to eschew a highly-admired and self-fulfilling aspect of their work as firefighters.”
The judge’s decision has nationwide ramifications and gives some recourse to firefighters across the country, Aboushi said.
“The medical accommodations was working before and it’s the right thing to do,” she said. “Let them fight fires.”
Emails to the FDNY were not immediately returned. A spokesman for the city Law Department said the city is reviewing its options.
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