It is a firestorm of controversy in the Buffalo Fire Department. There are claims of racism from 13 Buffalo firefighters, including battalion chief Joe Fahey. "To put it plainly, I was discriminated against because I'm white." said Fahey.

He and the others won a discrimination law suit against the city. They placed high on a state required promotion exam, but all were denied permanent advancement. Fahey, instead, got a provisional or temporary promotion. "I want to state right from the get go that this is not the fault of the fire department. This is the fault of human resources commissioner Leonard Matarese." he said.

Materese testified in court that the battalion and division chief promotion lists were "killed" or expired because there were not enough African Americans on the lists. His testimony was, "The problem is that if we kept those lists in place and the longer we kept them (the promotion lists) in place, the more white males would be promoted into these positions."

The city is appealing and in the meantime Fahey is getting demoted, losing his temporary promotion. "Chief Fahey's situation is one of the grossest of the miscarriages of justice that are occuring here." said his attorney Andrew Fleming.

Fahey, who also studied to be a lawyer, passed the bar exam. He also placed 4th on the test that led him to his temporary promotion. It is a job he held for two years.

Since then, the city started giving its own promotion exam. It is a different version than the state exam used by other cities. Fahey ended up scoring 17th on the city's new exam. "I can't help but think that since I successfully sued commissioner Materese, and because he is the one in charge of the test, I can't help but think there's something improper was done with my marks." said Fahey.

Fahey's attorney says in a weird twist of fate, the new test that's suppose correct a perceived racial imbalance, actually hurt a minority. An African American firefighter was in line for advancement to captain on the first list, but because it was allowed to expire, he wasn't able to take the city's new exam for the higher rank of battalion chief.
"Ironically what the city did here was prevent an African American from being in a position to take the battalion chief exam." said Fleming.

A Buffalo spokesperson told 7 News the city has not comment because the case is still under appeal.