Marine turns down FDNY exception

The Brooklyn federal judge who ordered new firefighter tests to eliminate discrimination at the FDNY extended the application deadline Monday night to allow Medal of Honor winner Sgt. Dakota Meyer to take the new test -- only to be rebuffed.

After U.S. District Judge Nicholas Garaufis extended the Sept. 19 deadline to give him 24 hours to apply, a lawyer for the Marine said he didn't want to be singled out and would apply only if others could, too.

"Sergeant Meyer does not want a one-man exception," lawyer Keith Sullivan said. "The form of relief he will not accept is the only thing the judge will offer."

Meyer, of Kentucky, is credited with saving 36 lives by risking his own during a firefight in Afghanistan. Sullivan said he missed the deadline while making appearances for the Department of Defense after receiving the Medal of Honor this month. "It is his exemplary leadership and outstanding character that the city of New York should relish in a firefighter candidate," Sullivan wrote the judge.

Garaufis acted after city Corporation Counsel Michael Cardozo asked him to create a 24-hour window in which Meyer and other late applicants could apply.

The judge said he would make an exception for one "extraordinary individual" but refused to go further.

He said even a 24-hour reopening could undercut special recruitment efforts that created an applicant pool for the new test that was nearly 50 percent minority as of Sept. 19. "A brief, general reopening of the application period, especially without any accompanying recruitment effort . . . would create a serious risk of an adverse impact on the minority groups who are substantially underrepresented in the ranks of the FDNY," he said.

The Vulcan Society, a black firefighters group that brought the suit, supported extending the deadline for Meyer and others. The U.S. government, which also is a plaintiff in the case, urged Garaufis to approve the request for a general reopening but extend it for 42 hours.

Sullivan, who also represents a firefighters group called Merit Matters that has criticized the judge's rulings, said he was considering additional legal steps.

Paul Mannix, an FDNY captain who heads Merit Matters, questioned the judge's concern about undercutting minority recruitment by allowing more applicants for 24 hours. "I don't see how that could possibly apply," he said.