Law Office of Swick & Shapiro: DHS not following OPM procedures in Hiring Military Veteran holding 30-Point Preference Status

WASHINGTON - July 1, 2019 - PRLog -- A case now in litigation in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, Pitt vs McAleenan, Case #17-2466TJK "D.D.C.": contends that DHS uses racial discrimination in its hiring processes, where an African American female with impeccable military, law enforcement, educational and specialized credentials; and chosen "Best Qualified" multiple times (according to OPM standards), since 2012, has not been selected for a PSA position.

As recently as May 2019, this "elite" unit of DHS has approximately 100+ PSAs throughout the United States working as the Department's liaisons protecting critical assets in local communities. The approximate statistical break-down of these federal PSA's are: 94 White Males, 4 Black Males, now 4 White Females and 1 Hispanic Female. There are zero African American Women – and there has never been one in the history of the PSA position! The Standard pay grade for PSAs is GS-14 – which equates to an annual salary range of $98,000 to $140,000!

The long-time hiring requirements for DHS PSA positions include those with an average of 20 years of law enforcement, military, and anti-terrorism experience. Expertise that many African American Men and Women have. However, there are No African American Women who hold an appointment as a PSA, and there never have been any appointed since 2004. Moreover, the newest hire in 2018, a White Woman - has none of the relevant experience and was hired as a PSA with less than two years of employment with the federal government - using special hiring authority. "As Per Attorney"

In addition, during the selection process for PSA jobs, DHS hiring officials are not following the U.S. Office of Personnel Management (OPM) policies and procedures for hiring veterans who earned Veterans Preference, even with respect to those who are 30-point preference eligible (that is, those who have a 30 percent or more service-connected disability). Indeed, DHS is not even following its own policies and procedures for workforce diversity in the PSA program and uses internal "reassignments" among its PSA corps to avoid OPMs hiring guidelines and the Veterans Preference rules. https://www.dhs.gov/sites/default/files/publications/PSA-...

We are calling out to African American women: if you applied for a PSA position, was interviewed for a vacancy, but did not get the job, contact us and share your story. We want to know!