Jeff Graham is an Anchorage fire fighter who sued the Municipality of Anchorage for discrimination in promotion testing. The case was heard in Superior Court from July 17, 2017 until August 10, 2017 when the jury gave its verdict.
This page will serve as a brief introduction to, and annotated index (below) of, a series of posts about the trial.
[UPDATE January 20, 2018:
There are two things important here:
1. The details of what happened to Jeff Graham show that basics of public administration (and the MOA charter) were violated significantly with serious negative impacts
2. Yet the system was unable to acknowledge this. Instead they supported the perpetrators and rebuffed Jeff Graham and others who tried to correct the problem.
The purpose of this series of posts is to 1. help make the details clear so that 2. the structure that allows these problems to go on, gets fixed.
Post #5 is probably the best overview I have at this point.]
I had a unique view of this trial because I was hired as an expert witness by the plaintiff's attorney. It's a story that hasn't been covered, to my knowledge, by the media, except for one brief pre-trial report by Casey Grove on APRN.
I'm only posting now, because my role as a blogger was subordinate to my role as an expert witness. When Jeff Graham's attorney, Jeff Jarvi (yes, two Jeffs was and still is plenty confusing) called me in March 2016, we talked about my being a blogger. I'd never been an expert witness before, and as we discussed things, we agreed that I could not blog about the case until after the final appeal date had passed. That happened November 5. But I gave it a little more time.
There is a wide range of topics to cover: [Feb 19, 2018, started to link specific posts to this list for readers, but also to see for myself how I'm getting these topics covered. I can see that I'll have a lot more posts on 'the facts of the case itself' as I get into the details of the exams. I've added today a subheading called 'The exams.'' There will be quite a few of these because posts would get too long otherwise. They are technical and so getting it as precise and as clear as possible takes time. I
- the facts of the case itself [Nov 27, 2017] [Dec 27, 2017]
- the exams [Feb 6, 2018]
- the difficulty of proving discrimination [Nov 28, 2017]
- merit principles, [Dec 18, 2017] [Feb 19, 2018]
- how the court operates
- the jury [Aug 14, 2017]
- what can be admitted
- the Anchorage Fire Department [Jan 11, 2018*]
- how corruption of fair processes can thrive within an organization [Jan 20, 2018]
- the ethical challenges of blogging about something you were part of
[UPDATED Dec 27, 2017: I'm editing this page as I write new posts and get closer to being able to articulate the key issues. For my best overview of this case, I now suggest you look at the December 27, 2017 post. The Nov. 27 post gives a different sort of overview. From here I can now start getting into more specifics of the case.]
INDEX OF POSTS - Most recent first
Friday, May 25, 2018 - Graham v MOA #12 - Fire Chief LeBlanc Retires - just a brief note of this change at AFD and a hope that the new chief will take diversifying the force seriously.
Monday, May 21, 2018 - Graham v MOA #11 - Oral Exams 4 - Jeff Graham Passes New Promotion Exam - Jeff passed this year's engineer promotion exam and is #5 on the promotion list which gives him a good likelihood of being promoted in the next two years. This is a current event and I'll get back to the trial issues soon.
Tuesday, March 20, 2018 - Graham v MOA #10 - Exams 3 - The Oral Technical Exam - Goes in detail through the problems with the technical part of the oral exam. I've highlighted briefly the key problems at the beginning of the post. These are the kind of details that help clarify why the jury decided as they did.
Monday, February 19, 2018 - Graham v. MOA #9 - Exams 2 - Can You Explain These Term: Merit Principles, Validity, Reliability? - Looks at Merit Principles and what they mean and why they are important, not just in this case, but in government and employment in general. It turns out I covered much of this ground, though a little differently back on Dec. 18. But it's the kind of material that is hard enough, that a second round is probably a good idea.
Tuesday, February 6, 2018 - Graham v MOA #8 - The Exams 1 - How The Process Works - The post looks at the three parts of the exam - written, practical, and oral - as a preview to more detailed posts on the oral exam. Also raises question about overtime at the Anchorage Fire Department.
Saturday, January 20, 2018 - Graham v MOA #7 - "you cannot allow the bad guy to go to jail and you leave the structure intact." - This quote, from an NPR interview of Howard Bryant about the Larry Nassar trial and why sexual abuse in the US Olympics team was allowed to go on for 20 years. This notion of the system being the problem is why I'm doing this series of posts. The problem isn't over when a perpetrator gets punished.
Thursday, January 11, 2018 - Graham v MOA #6: Test Makers Lack Certification - This post looks at the state certification of the people involved in the engineer academy who were involved in putting together the training and testing and compares it to what the state certification process says they were qualified to do.
Wednesday, December 27, 2017 - Graham v MOA #5: A Much Better Overview Of Why This Case Is Important - For now, this is my best attempt at an overview of what happened in this case. It raises the key issues I see and a bit of evidence to support my conclusions, though I will follow up with specifics in future posts.
Thursday, December 21, 2017 - Graham v MOA #4: Some Media Coverage, Finally - Looks at Casey Grove's Dec. 19 piece on the case at APRN.
Monday, December 18, 2017 - Graham v MOA #3: Following Merit Principles In The MOA Charter Could Have Prevented All Of This - Merit Systems were put in place to stop the corruption of the spoils system. With merit a candidates qualifications for the job are the key criteria rather than loyalty to key politicians. This post reviews the history of merit and how it relates to selection and promotion.
Tuesday, November 28, 2017 - Graham v MOA #2 : Discrimination and Race Issues - Rather than obsess over perfect organization, I just talk about this issue letting the discussion go where it naturally flows. Other stuff naturally overlaps.
Monday, November 27, 2017 - Graham v Municipality of Anchorage #1: Overview - Firefighter Sues Municipality of Anchorage - This is an introductory post to this series. It offers an overview and my comments on why the case is important and some issues of blogging this.
Monday, August 14, 2017 - Anchorage Jury Sides With Fire Fighter Against Municipality of Anchorage
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