The Vulcans' Sour Note

Recent Firefighter graduation ceremonies have been accompanied by another rite of sorts: the leader of the FDNY Vulcan Society, John Coombs, holding a press conference to protest that there are too few blacks among the grads.

The Vulcans have long decried the low representation of blacks in the uniformed ranks. What once could have qualified as institutional racism in the Fire Department - symbolized by the hoary designation of a "black bed" intended to be used by African-American firefighters who were detailed to usually all-white companies - is a thing of the past, but progress has been decidedly slow in integrating the agency, with blacks making up less than 4 percent of the firefighting force.

In an effort to keep media attention focused on the low numbers, the Vulcans have been willing to risk alienating new classes of firefighters and their families on what for them is a day of celebration by holding the press conferences as a lead-in to the graduations. That is their right, but we would question the group's judgment in doing so last week.

Vulcan President John Coombs pointed out that just five of the 274 grads - who were selected based on their scores on the 2002 civil service exam for Firefighter - were black. "It's just obvious that nothing much is going to change," he said.

That exam, as well as the preceding one in 1999, are the subjects of a civil rights suit brought by the U.S. Justice Department in which the Vulcans have been given the right to intervene as an interested party. Justice brought suit after determining that the exams had a disparate impact on black candidates, which is not the same as actually being discriminatory.

However that suit plays out, it clearly had an impact on changes the Fire Department made for the Firefighter exam given last year, from an intensive recruiting effort to attract more well-qualified minority candidates to a change in the test's design. As a letter on the opposite page from an FDNY Deputy Chief details, there have been allegations that the department went so far that minority candidates may have been given an undue advantage on the exam, although none of those claims have been substantiated.

As it stands now, the results of the written test are very encouraging for making real strides in improving the diversity of the firefighting force, with minorities comprising 33 percent of those who scored high enough to have a strong likelihood of being hired.

Mr. Coombs was not nearly as enthusiastic as he should have been when those results were announced in November, saying he would wait until those candidates had gone through the physical exams and background checks that are required and been graduated from the Fire Academy before calling a celebratory press conference. He insisted then that it was necessary to see the Justice Department lawsuit through rather than congratulating the Fire Department for what appeared to be a breakthrough.

There is a certain paradox to opting to reserve judgment on that matter while continuing to hold the press conferences that amount to raining on the parade of the new graduates. Mr. Coombs obviously figures he is not in his post to promote harmony, but it's hard to see what he's accomplishing at this point other than introducing some discord into what should be a happy day. If the ongoing lawsuit and the FDNY hiring process based on the new exam don't produce the progress he is pressing for, then the protest press conferences would begin to again resonate as something other than a sour note.