Delays in Case of Race Bias Could Cost Secret Service

Agent Reginald Moore said he requested a promotion to management more than 200 times as white agents with less experience leaped ahead of him. Moore, who has worked at the Secret Service for nearly a quarter-century, said he finally advanced in 2002, after the lawsuit was filed.

Former agent Cheryl Tyler said she was never promoted to management despite decades of solid evaluations. She left the agency in 2003, joined the Transportation Security Administration at the Department of Homeland Security, and was immediately promoted to a management position. She retired in December.

Moore and Tyler said they worked with white agents who participated in the infamous "Good Ol' Boy Roundup," a whites-only party that took place annually in the 1980s and 1990s in eastern Tennessee. It included, at various times, law enforcement officers wearing Ku Klux Klan hoods, an effigy of O.J. Simpson hanging by the neck and T-shirts with racist images.

"Agents who were known participants in the Good Ol' Boy Roundup were promoted," Moore said. "Their argument constantly changed as to why I wasn't promoted."

Attorneys for the Secret Service said that Moore sent e-mails that could be viewed as offensive, including one making fun of an obese black woman. In a response, Moore did not dispute that he sent the e-mails, but said the filing by the Secret Service "does not change the fact that there is overwhelming evidence that racial discrimination at the agency" that kept black agents from being promoted.

In April, a black agent discovered a noose at the Secret Service training complex in Beltsville. During an investigation, the agency debated whether the rope was a traditional noose. Eventually, a white instructor was placed on leave after admitting to hanging the rope.

Zahren defended the agency, saying: "We're not perfect. We make mistakes like everyone else." He said African Americans have done "extremely well" in the service and offered statistics showing that black agents advance faster than white agents.

The plaintiffs' lawyers have disputed the figures.