Alleged discrimination by 3 Long Island fire districts prompts fines, settlement with state human rights division

Three Long Island fire departments and their governing fire districts have agreed to pay fines and change policies to settle complaints of unlawful discrimination, according to the New York State Division of Human Rights.

In a news release Monday, the agency said Brookhaven and Levittown fire departments and districts had displayed the Confederate flag, a historic symbol of the pro-slavery South, on department equipment.

Those departments, as well as Holbrook’s, also used bylaws that unlawfully stipulated only United States citizens could be department volunteers, the agency said. It also alleged Holbrook unlawfully requested information about applicants’ national origin, religion and whether they had been charged with or convicted of a crime.

"The Confederate flag is a historical symbol of racism and that its display by the Brookhaven Fire Department and Levittown Fire Department violated the New York State Human Rights Law,” the human rights division said in a news release. The agency said by conveying a discriminatory message, “the public’s ability to rely on and utilize the critical fire and EMS services provided by these Departments, as well as discouraging prospective applicants from seeking to join their Departments”

Brookhaven and Holbrook departments did not respond to requests for comment by email and voicemail. Levittown did not respond to a voicemail. 

Two Brookhaven firefighters resigned after the 2020 Confederate flag incident, in which they unfurled the flag on a Brookhaven fire truck during a Patchogue parade to support a sick Patchogue firefighter, Newsday reported.

"There is no place for racism of any kind" in the fire department, fire district commissioners said in a statement at the time. "There is no excuse. There is no defense."

The Levittown Fire Department drill team's nickname is the Rebels, and its logo for many years was a bearded man dressed in a gray Civil War uniform clutching a Confederate flag, Newsday has reported. Then-Levittown Chief Al Williams told Newsday in 2020  the department had removed Confederate symbols from buildings and equipment.

The state's complaints against the departments were originally brought in 2021, the release said. In an emailed statement, Georgette Grier-Key, president of the NAACP's Brookhaven Town chapter, said the Brookhaven Fire Department apologized in a meeting that year.

"They understand they betrayed public trust and vowed to make the necessary changes," she said. 

Legislation introduced by then-State Sen. Anna Kaplan (D-Great Neck) and signed into law in 2021 prohibited municipalities, including fire districts and volunteer fire companies, from selling or displaying of "symbols of hate" including the Confederate flag. Kaplan said she drafted the legislation after learning the flag had hung in a Levittown Fire Department house. She said she was also motivated by the Brookhaven incident. 

As part of the settlements announced Monday, the fire districts and fire departments agreed to remove depictions of the Confederate flag from their equipment, property, apparel, websites and social media accounts and to adopt policies prohibiting its display — or the display of other hate symbols — in the future, according to the release. Both districts and departments also agreed to have all district commissioners and department members participate in training on the Human Rights Law.

Holbrook, Brookhaven and Levittown departments and districts also agreed to adopt amendments to their membership applications to comply with state human rights law, according to the release.

The departments and districts also agreed to pay $28,000 in civil fines to the state.

Barbara Powell, president of the NAACP chapter in Hempstead Town, part of which is served by the Levittown fire department, said the state allegations were particularly troubling because fire department buildings sometimes serve as voting stations.

"It is disgusting that we are even here in 2025," she said in a phone interview. "I am appalled." 

Robert Leonard, a spokesman for the Firefighters Association of the State of New York, which trains and lobbies for volunteer firefighters, said in an email "fire departments operate best when their membership includes all members of the community they serve. It is also important that all those who live or work in a fire department’s response area feel comfortable and respected when visiting a fire station or seeing fire apparatus on the streets of their neighborhoods."