Kansas City fire captain sues, saying he faced retaliation over raising racism concerns

KANSAS CITY, Mo. — A Kansas City Fire Department captain has filed a lawsuit alleging he was retaliated against after raising concerns about racist hiring and promotion practices, including claims that department leadership destroyed evidence and blamed Black firefighters’ test performance on a lack of education.

The complaint, filed on behalf of fire Capt. Donnell Roberts, in Jackson County Circuit Court on Dec. 16, alleges that Black firefighters were unfairly denied promotions, that department leaders manipulated test processes and that Roberts was excluded from diversity and recruitment initiatives.

The lawsuit also claims that outgoing Fire Chief Ross Grundyson told Roberts that Black candidates performed poorly on promotion tests because they were less educated than their white peers.

Roberts’ attorney, Nickalaus Seacord, declined to comment on the lawsuit, and Kansas City fire officials declined to comment, citing ongoing legal proceedings.

The lawsuit alleges that Roberts was treated unfairly.

“As a 50-year-old African American male with more than 20 years’ service with KCFD, Plaintiff has repeatedly observed younger, less experienced, and less educated white peers be promoted to the ranks of division chief, battalion chief, and deputy chief while Plaintiff’s own professional development and advancement has been repeatedly undermined and stymied by KCFD’s discriminatory promotional practices,” according to the lawsuit.

KCFD’s DEI process

In the petition, Roberts said former Fire Chief Donna Lake approached him to lead the newly created Diversity and Recruitment Division and would answer directly to Lake.

Lake’s name, along with other department officials, including Grundyson, is redacted in the lawsuit.

After Roberts accepted the position, he was notified by Lake that she would be creating a new division chief who would serve above him as his boss, as the head of the new division. The lawsuit alleges that despite having the necessary qualifications, Roberts was never contacted for an interview for the role.

That role ultimately was given to a white female employee, according to the lawsuit. Roberts complained to Lake, saying that he was being marginalized, “particularly as it related to a white employee being allowed to ascend to the division chief position despite not meeting the requirements,” the lawsuit alleges.

Roberts had previously applied to take a battalion chief promotion exam in September 2022, but his application was denied because he did not have three years of experience as a captain. Roberts had two years and 11 months of experience at the time of his application and would’ve had three years of experience at the time of the test, according to the lawsuit.

The Fire Department had allowed other white male firefighters to take the promotion exam without meeting the minimum requirements based on the directive of commanding officers or if they exceeded other eligibility requirements, the lawsuit said.

In early 2023, allegations came out that a then-KCFD professional development chief had improperly held special study sessions with hand-picked candidates that were almost entirely white and male, according to the lawsuit. The name of the professional development chief is redacted from the filing.

Roberts said he reported the allegations and other concerns about the promotions exam to the city’s chief equity officer, as well as reporting issues with the department’s onboarding exams.

An investigation into the complaint confirmed his concerns and every candidate who took the onboarding test passed in April 2023, but the battalion and division chief tests were not addressed, according to the lawsuit.

The lawsuit said Lake resigned as fire chief not long after the allegations into the exams arose, and Ross Grundyson was named interim fire chief in January 2023.

Soon after he was appointed interim Fire Chief, Grundyson allegedly began complaining about KCFD’s “DEI process,” claiming it brought “too much negativity” to the department and wanted to start seeing the positives.

“To that end, Interim Chief (Grundyson) created his own, new DEI council, staffed with nearly all white male members…,” the lawsuit said. “To better facilitate their mass hiring of new white male battalion chiefs, Interim Chief (Grundyson) removed service requirements for the battalion chief test and approved a large class of first-time battalion chief test takers, almost all of whom were white males.”

Grundyson also created two deputy chief positions in his first year as interim chief, both of which were filled by white male candidates. Neither of those positions went through an open application process, according to the lawsuit.

The lawsuit mirrors years of reporting by The Star into the internal racism of the KCFD faced by Black and female firefighters.

Roberts was issued a right to sue by the Missouri Commission on Human Rights in September, but in October, he filed a second complaint with the EEOC and the Missouri Commission on Human Rights, which has yet to give its ruling.

The lawsuit asks to be amended when the right to sue is given to include more information, as well as demanding a jury trial based on a count of discrimination, as well as a count of retaliation.

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