May 18, 2025
A white 27-year veteran of the Akron Fire Department filed a lawsuit against the city claiming he was unfairly passed over for a promotion in favor of a 49-year-old Black woman.
Stop me if this sounds familiar: A 58-year-old white man is suing the city because a Black woman got the job.
Michael Haas, a 27-year veteran of the Akron Fire Department, has filed a lawsuit against the City of Akron and its fire department, claiming he was unfairly passed over for a promotion in favor of 49-year-old Sierjie Lash, a Black woman who was appointed Captain.
According to WKYC, Haas alleges that the city’s “Rule of Five” policy—which lets leadership choose from the top five candidates after interviews—was weaponized to discriminate against him based on his age, race, and gender.
Haas is also arguing that Lash’s disciplinary record was expunged so that she could be considered for the role, citing a 30-day unpaid suspension in 2023 for off-duty coaching in his lawsuit that was overturned as further evidence of Lash’s supposed preferential treatment while white candidates like himself received penalties for similar conduct.
According to Signal Akron, Lash was previously Akron’s first Black woman deputy fire chief, and Haas’ lawsuit is nearly singularly focused on her; her name appears 72 times across the lawsuit’s 34 pages.
Spectacularly, Hass alleges in his lawsuit that AFD’s Chief Leon Henderson retaliated against him to benefit Lash based in part on the fact that they’re both Black.
Per the lawsuit, “In considering how to promote Lash to district chief, Henderson conferred with Natko and Clarence Tucker about how to skip Haas and other qualified candidates in favor of Lash” because of her race and gender, according to the complaint. The suit also accuses Tucker, who is also a Black man, of having some kind of “discriminatory bias” toward Lash.
Haas’ lawsuit also requests a permanent injunction which requires the firing or demotion of supervisors whom he is accusing of engaging in discrimination against him and who he says retaliated against him instead of investigating his claims including Henderson, Assistant to the Mayor for Emergency Management Joseph Natko, and Tucker, the Deputy Mayor for Public Safety.
Hass’ attorney, Bryan Spitz, would only tell Signal Akron that “We are very confident in our complaint. We are committed to obtaining justice in this matter and for all employees.” Meanwhile, the City of Akron’s spokesperson declined to comment on an open piece of litigation.
In addition to the injunction against Henderson et al, Hass wants to be given “one of the positions to which he was entitled,” all negative documentation in his personnel to be expunged, and a sum of more than $25,000 in damages he feels he is owed.
Although there seems to be an uptick in cases like these, a 2019 article in Scientific American set forth that, in actuality, reverse discrimination, that is, discrimination against white people, is not becoming more common, despite their feelings.
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