The Levittown fire department and district was one of three on Long Island to recently settle complaints of unlawful discrimination filed in 2021 with the state Division of Human Rights that has stained the reputation of those we correctly call the “bravest.”
The state Division of Human Rights said the Levittown and Brookhaven fire departments and districts had displayed the Confederate flag on department equipment.
As the state agency said, the Confederate flag is a historic symbol of the pro-slavery South and a symbol of racism.
Worse, the Division of Human Rights found that the Levittown Fire District and Fire Department operated a drill team known as the “Rebels” that competed against teams from other fire departments in tests of firefighting skills.
The agency said the Levittown team logo was, for many years, a bearded man dressed in a gray Civil War uniform clutching a Confederate flag, wearing a belt marked by the letters “L.F.D.” for “Levittown Fire Department.”
This means fire departments that competed against Levittown were aware of their use of Confederate flag displays and the term “Rebels,” a reference to the southern states’ rebellion against the United States and its participation in a war in which 360,000 Union soldiers died and another 260,000 fighting for the Confederacy.
New York had more casualties than any other state, Union or Confederate.
We would like to think that members of those competing teams reported Levittown’s racist display. But we don’t know if they did or didn’t.
That, fairly or unfairly, leaves a shadow to hang over the heads of people who risk their lives by running into burning buildings to save the lives of others from other departments on Long Island.
The state agency also alleged that the Levittown Department’s membership application unlawfully required applicants to disclose their citizenship status, including whether the applicant was a citizen by birth or by naturalization, as well as unlawfully requiring applicants to disclose their marital status and whether they had ever been charged with or convicted of a crime.
This is at a time when fire departments across Long Island are struggling to recruit volunteers to fill their ranks.
Robert Leonard, a spokesman for the Firefighters Association of the State of New York, which trains and lobbies for volunteer firefighters, had it right.
“Fire departments operate best when their membership includes all members of the community they serve,” Leonard said. “It is also important that all those who live or work in a fire department’s response area feel comfortable and respected when visiting a fire station or seeing fire apparatus on the streets of their neighborhoods.”
State Division of Human Rights Acting Commissioner Denise M. Miranda also did.
“When services like these display symbols of racism or maintain policies that unlawfully discriminate against people who may want to join the department, it damages public trust and harms communities,” Miranda said.
The settlements require the fire departments and districts to remove all displays or depictions of the Confederate flag, change policies prohibiting the use of the symbol in the future, train on the Human Rights Law, amend their membership applications and policies to comply with the state’s Human Rights Law, and pay civil fines totaling $28,000 to the state.
Then-Levittown Chief Al Williams said in 2020 that the department had removed Confederate symbols from buildings and equipment, according to a published report. Levittown’s current leadership declined to comment on the settlement.
Legislation introduced by then-State Sen. Anna Kaplan (D-Great Neck) and signed into law in 2021 prohibited municipalities, including fire districts and volunteer fire companies, from selling or displaying “symbols of hate,” including the Confederate flag.
Kaplan said she drafted the legislation after learning the flag had hung in a Levittown Fire Department house.
We applaud the state Division of Human Rights for filing its complaints and reaching a settlement with Levittown and two other fire departments and fire districts.
They have provided an important service to everyone on Long Island – including the Levittown Fire Department.
