Olivette Coffey, Jr. v. Dwight Braddy

ROGERS, Circuit Judge:

Thirty-four years ago, in 1982, the district court entered a consent decree requiring the City of Jacksonville to hire in its fire department “an equal number of blacks and whites until the ratio of black fire fighters to white fire fighters reflects the ratio of black citizens to white citizens in the City of Jacksonville.” The City complied for ten years, until it unilaterally and without the district court’s approval stopped following the decree in 1992. In the years following, employees moved away or died, documents were lost or destroyed, and public debate over the…